MARK KNELT IN front of the fireplace, adding wood to the blaze, while Carly sat on the couch, her legs curled beneath her. The white wine in her glass sparkled and winked like a liquid jewel.
“Things are happening pretty fast between us,” she said.
He looked back at her over one shoulder. “Is that a problem?”
Carly thought, taking a leisurely sip of her wine. “Yeah, when you consider we don’t even know what it is.”
Mark joined her on the couch, taking her wineglass from her hand and setting it beside his on the coffee table. “Don’t look now, Barnett, but I think it’s passion,” he said, easing Carly down onto the cushions and then poising himself over her.
He was so incredibly brazen, but Carly couldn’t find it in her heart to protest. She wanted to feel his weight pressing down on her, wanted to lose herself in the multicolored light show his lovemaking would set off in her head.
Mark drank the wine from her lips, then shaped her mouth with his and delved into her with his tongue. Carly felt as though he’d already taken her, and an electrical jolt racked her body. With a whimper, she flung her arms around his neck and responded without reservation.
Mark was gasping when he broke the kiss and slid downward over her body. Carly raised her T-shirt and opened her bra of her own accord, and his groan of pleasure at the sight of her naked breasts vibrated under her flesh.
She cried out in acquiescence when he caught one of her nipples in his mouth and grazed it lightly with his teeth, and dug her fingers into his muscular back.
Before, Mark had taken his sweet time loving her, but that night there was a primitive urgency between them that would brook no delays. While he drank from her breast, Mark was unsnapping her jeans and pushing them down.
She kicked off her shoes, and Mark relieved her of the jeans. She lay before him in just her underpants, with her bra unhooked and her T-shirt bunched under her armpits, and for all the indignity of that she felt beautiful because his brown eyes moved over her with reverence.
“Take me,” she whispered, letting the backs of her hands rest against the soft material of the couch on either side of her head.
He bent his head and nipped at her lightly through the silky fabric of her panties until she was moaning softly and beginning to writhe.
Then his clothes were gone as quickly as Carly’s. He knelt between her legs, hooking his thumbs under the waistband of her panties, drawing them downward.
“Don’t think you’re going to get off this easy, Scoop,” he teased, finding her entrance and placing himself there. His eyes glittered with desire as he gazed down into her face. “I plan to keep you busy for a long time.”
Carly groaned as he gave her an inch then she clawed frantically at his bare back. “Please, Mark—don’t make me wait—”
His response was a long, fierce stroke that took him to her very depths. He cupped his hands beneath her bottom, lifting her into position for another thrust.
“Faster,” Carly fretted.
He chuckled. “Does this mean you missed me?”
“Damn you, Mark Holbrook!”
After that, he loved her in earnest, with fire and fever, and when the hot storm broke within her, she sobbed his name.
He covered her face with light, frantic kisses as he climaxed, his mouth on her eyelids, her cheeks, the underside of her chin. In those treacherous moments, Carly felt cherished as well as thoroughly mastered.
When it was over, he fell to her, taking solace in her softness in the age-old way of men. His breath came hard and his words, spoken against her cheek, were labored. “If this gets...any better... I’m going to need...respiratory therapy.”
Carly laughed softly and laid her hands to either side of his face. “Look at me, Mark. I’ve got to tell you something before I lose my courage.”
He raised his head, his brown eyes mischievous. “You used to be a man,” he guessed.
Carly’s delight erupted in another burst of amusement. “Wrong.”
“You have a prison record.”
She couldn’t let the game go on any longer. “I read your play, Mark,” she blurted out. “I found it and I read it.”
He studied her somberly for a long time, then thrust himself upward and reached for his clothes.
“Mark?”
“I heard you, Carly.”
“I don’t blame you for being angry—I shouldn’t have snooped. But it was fabulous—really fabulous.”
He got back into his jeans and stormed across the room to his desk.
Carly dressed awkwardly while he wrenched open the drawer, found the screenplay and flung it toward her, its fanfold pages spreading out over the floor. “Mark—”
“You like it?” he rasped. “It’s yours. Take it. Line bird cages with it!”
“What is the matter with you?” Carly demanded, snapping her jeans. When he didn’t answer, but just stood gazing out through the dark windows, she knelt and gently gathered the play up from the floor. She handled it like the broken pieces of something she’d cherished. “Do you know what I’d give to be able to write like this?”
He turned around then, and to Carly’s relief he was much calmer. “You’d have had to feel the pain,” he said. “Believe me, the price is too high.”
She held the manuscript to her breast like a child as she stood. “I did feel the pain, Mark—that’s what makes it such a wonderful piece of work—”
“Look,” Mark interrupted sharply, “I don’t give a damn that you read it, all right? But it represents another part of my life and I can’t talk about it—I don’t want to be reminded.”
“I can keep it?” Carly ventured cautiously. “I can take it home?”
“Do whatever you want.”
Carly was filled with sadness as she carried the play across the room and tucked it into her briefcase. She should have known Mark would be angry; she’d been trespassing in the deepest reaches of his soul.
“Carly?”
She felt his hands, strong and gentle, on her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Mark,” she whispered.
He turned her to face him. “No,” he said huskily. “I’m the one who was wrong. I apologize.”
She managed a broken smile. “We both knew this wasn’t going to work, didn’t we?” she asked.
He gave her a slight shake. “Of course it’s going to work,” he argued. “It has to.”
She prayed she wouldn’t cry. “Why?”
“Because I need you, and I hope to God you need me, that’s why. Because I think maybe I love you.”
“You ‘think maybe’?” Carly asked, hugging herself. She felt shaky and confused. “What the hell kind of statement is that?”
Mark caught her by the belt loops at the front of her jeans and hauled her toward him. “I’m doing the best I can here, Carly, so how about helping me out a little?” he said, his face very close to hers. “I don’t know if this feeling is love—I don’t even know if there’s any such thing as romantic love—but damn it, I feel something for the first time in ten years and I don’t want it to stop!”
Carly drew a deep, shaky breath. “You’re probably just horny,” she said in a tone of resignation.
Mark laughed like a comical maniac, hoisted her up over one shoulder and gave her a sound swat on the bottom. “You may be right,” he agreed.
“Put me down!” Carly gasped. “I’m about to throw up.”
“I love these romantic moments,” Mark answered, carrying her toward his bedroom in exactly the same position. “I feel like Errol Flynn.”
“You’re an idiot!”
He hauled her up the steps to his bed and flung her down on the mattress. “Will you lighten up, Scoop? Something poignant is happening here.”
“Like what?”
Mark stretched out beside her. “Damned if I know, but like I said—I sure don’t want it to end.”
Carly didn’t know whether she was happy or sad, whether she wanted to laugh or cry, but tears filled her eyes and she said, “Hold me.”
The next morning, she was careful to go to work in her own car, hoping no one at the newspaper would guess what was going on between her and Mark. But that night she went back to his house, and he cooked spaghetti.
They laughed and talked and made love, but they didn’t discuss Mark’s play. Or the assignment they might be sharing.
Friday was hectic. The decision to end the advice column had been made, and Carly felt responsible for its demise to some degree. After all, there had been the “Frazzled in Farleyville” incident.
She still had her office, however, and Mr. Clark announced in a special staff meeting that she and Mark would be working together for the time being. Carly could not have been happier, but there was something disturbing about the remote look she saw in Mark’s eyes when he looked at her.
“We’ll start working on the story tonight,” he announced peremptorily, when everyone else had left the conference room.
Carly swallowed. “I can’t.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You can’t?” he echoed, with a maddeningly indulgent note in his voice. “Why not, pray tell?”
Carly dragged in a deep breath and let it out with a whoosh. “I’ve got a dinner date. Jim Benson, remember? Channel 37?”
Mark walked over to the door and calmly pushed it shut. “Break it,” he said.
Hot pink indignation throbbed in Carly’s cheeks. “I beg your pardon.”
He was glaring at her. “You heard me, Carly.”
Carly had no feelings for Jim Benson one way or the other. She just wanted to establish contacts, to “network” the way other people in the media did. She struggled to stay calm. “Look, it’s no big deal. Besides, when I made this date, there was nothing going on between you and me.”
“And now there is,” Mark pointed out evenly.
Carly laid her hand on his arm. “It’s only dinner,” she said, and then she left the conference room.
Mark didn’t follow.
Back at her apartment, as she showered and dressed, Carly decided it would probably be a good thing if she saw other men. After all, whatever it was that had flared up between her and Mark had come on fast, and she’d had little or no chance to distance herself from the situation.
The other side of that coin, of course, was that Mark would have just as much right to date other women. And the prospect didn’t appeal to Carly at all.
Jim Benson arrived promptly at seven. He was tall and handsome, with dark hair and streaks of premature gray at his temples, and bright blue eyes. He took in Carly’s soft yellow dress with obvious appreciation.
As she and Jim were leaving the apartment, they encountered Janet, who stood there in the hallway, clutching a grocery bag and staring at them with her mouth open.
Carly knew there would be a message on her answering machine when she got home. “My best friend, Janet McClain,” she explained as she and Jim descended in the elevator.
Jim laughed. “When people gape like that, I get this overwhelming compulsion to see if my fly’s open.”
Jim’s car, a sleek sports model, was waiting in the parking lot, and he chivalrously opened the door for her. He turned out to be a very nice guy, the kind of man Carly might have gotten serious about if she hadn’t met Mark first.
When they’d reached the restaurant and were settled at their table, Jim said very companionably, “You must know Mark Holbrook, if you work at the Times.”
Carly nodded thoughtfully. “Sometimes I wonder how well,” she murmured.
“He and I have been good friends for a long time,” Jim went on. “I hope you won’t mind that I invited him and his date to join us for drinks later.”
Carly had been sipping ice water, and she nearly choked at this announcement. “Tell me the truth,” she said when she’d composed herself. “You didn’t invite Mark—he invited himself.”
Jim grinned. “Well...”
Carly had picked up her table napkin during her choking spell; now she tossed it down angrily. “Why, that sneaky—”
“Am I missing something here?” the newscaster asked politely.
Carly sighed. Jim was too nice; she wasn’t going to play games with him. “The truth is, Mark and I have been seeing each other, and something’s going on. I don’t know whether it’s love or not, but it’s pretty heavy, and he was upset when I told him I was keeping my date with you.”
A grin spread across Jim’s face. “So he just wants to unsettle you?”
“I’m afraid so,” Carly said with a nod and another sigh. “I’m sorry, Jim.”
He shrugged. “No reason we can’t be friends.” He picked up his menu and opened it. “The shrimp scampi is good here.”
Carly had no appetite at all now that she knew Mark was going to show up at any minute, but she ordered the shrimp and did her best to eat.
She and Jim were in the lounge, later, when he said, “Don’t look now, but your partner just walked in. Let’s dance and give him a thing or two to think about.”
The idea sounded good to Carly. She smiled warmly and allowed Jim to lead her onto the small dance floor. Even though it nearly killed her, she didn’t look to see who Mark was with.
“Is he watching?” she asked.
Jim chuckled and drew her closer. “Oh, yes. If that expression in his eyes were a laser beam, he’d be doing surgery on me. The kind you don’t recover from.”
Carly laughed. “And the woman?”
“Weatherperson from Channel 18. Very cute.”
Before Carly could maneuver into a position where she could get a look at Mark’s date, he walked right onto the dance floor. Carly was pulled from Jim’s arms into Mark’s long before he took the trouble to grind out, “May I cut in?”
“No,” Carly answered, but when she tried to pull away, he restrained her. “This is ridiculous.”
He arched one eyebrow. “All right, I admit it—I’m jealous as hell.”
Carly smiled acidly, her eyes widening in mock surprise. “No!”
He gave her a surreptitious pinch on the bottom, and she gasped and stiffened in response. “You’ve made your point, Barnett—I don’t have any rights where you’re concerned. But you’re going to have to give up dating other guys, unless you want me tagging along.”
“Why should I?” Carly asked. “Give up dating other guys, I mean.”
“Because I l-like you.”
“Well, I l-like you, too. Maybe I even love you. In spite of the fact that you’re acting like a badly trained baboon tonight.” The music stopped. “How about introducing me to your date, Mark?”
He cleared his throat, took her hand and started toward the table where Jim and the weatherperson were sitting, already deep in conversation. “I told you he was a lech,” Mark whispered.
“And he told me you were his friend,” Carly scolded.
“I was, until he made a move on you,” Mark responded, still talking under his breath.
Jim stood when he saw Carly, and an unreadable look passed between the two men. Mark pulled out Carly’s chair for her and, when she was seated, sat down beside the weatherperson.
“This is Margery Woods,” he said. “Margery, Carly Barnett.”
The young woman’s brown eyes were round with admiration. “Miss United States—”
“Let’s not talk about me,” Carly broke in.
“But I saw your pageant—I recorded it. I record all the pageants.”
Carly looked to both Mark and Jim for rescue, but neither of them offered it. In fact, they both looked amused, as though they’d set up some tacit conspiracy. “That’s—that’s nice,” she said. “Have you been dating Mark long, Margery?”
That question wiped the complacent look from Mark’s face.
“On and off for about six months,” Margery responded with a philosophical sigh. Then she gave her date an affectionately suspicious glance. “But I’ve heard rumors that he’s running around with some bimbo at the newspaper office.”
Carly managed to swallow the sip of white wine she’d taken without choking on it, but just barely. She gave Mark a look that said, just you wait, fella, then changed the subject.
By the time Jim drove her home, she was exhausted. “I’m sorry,” she said again at her door. “Tonight was probably a real drag for you.”
He smiled and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “Actually it was the most fun I’ve had in weeks. If it helps any, I can tell you that Mark’s in love with you.”
The words gave Carly a soft, melting feeling inside. “It helps,” she said.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Jim answered with a grin and a shrug. He kissed Carly again and walked away.
As soon as Carly was inside her apartment with the lights flipped on and the door locked behind her, she saw that she had messages. Kicking off her high-heeled shoes and pushing one hand through her hair, she played the first message.
“Who was that hunk?” Janet’s voice demanded without so much as a hello. “I mean, I know who he is because I’ve seen him on television. What I meant was, what are you doing going out with him when you’ve got this hot thing going with Mark Holbrook? You’d better call me tonight, Carly Barnett, or our friendship is over!”
Carly grinned as she moved on to the next message.
“Carly, honey, this is your dad. I was just calling to see how you’re doing. Give me a ring tomorrow sometime, if you have a chance—I’ll be at the filling station.”
Her throat thick, because she would have liked very much to talk with her father and maybe get some perspective on the situation with Mark, Carly sank into the desk chair to hear any further messages.
“Okay, I acted like a caveman,” Mark’s voice confessed. “It’s pretty strange, Scoop—I’m sorry, and yet I know I’d do the same thing all over again. I’ll pick you up in the morning for breakfast and we’ll get started on the new project. Bye.”
She wondered what her dad would think of Mark Holbrook and his high-handed but virtually irresistible methods. Her teeth sinking into her lower lip, Carly glanced at the clock on her desk and wished it wasn’t so late in Kansas.
The sudden jangling of the telephone startled her so much that she nearly fell off her chair. Knowing the caller was probably either Mark or Janet, she answered with a somewhat snappish “Hello.”
“Hi, baby,” her father’s voice said.
“Dad!” Carly looked at the clock again. “Is everything okay? Are you sick?”
He chuckled. “Do I have to be sick to call my little girl?”
Carly let out a long sigh. “I’m so glad you did,” she said. “I really need to talk to you.”
“I’m listening.”
Carly’s eyes stung with tears of love and homesickness. Her dad had always been willing to listen, and she was grateful. “I think I’m falling in love, Dad. His name is Mark Holbrook, and he’s utterly obnoxious, but I can’t stay away from him.”
Her father laughed affectionately. “Did you think it would be bad news to me, your falling in love? I’m happy for you, honey.”
“Didn’t you hear me, Dad? I said he was obnoxious! And he is. He’s got this Pulitzer Prize, and he’s always making comments about my title—”
“There are worse problems.”
“I think he’s going to ask me to move in with him,” Carly burst out.
Don Barnett was quiet for several moments. “If he does, what are you going to say?”
Carly swallowed hard. “Yes. I think.”
If her father had made any private judgments, he didn’t voice them. “You’re a big girl now, Carly. You have to make decisions like that for yourself.”
Carly sighed. “Maybe I should hold out for white lace and promises,” she mused.
Her dad chuckled at that. “Even when you’ve got those things, there aren’t any guarantees. The name of the game is risk.”
It seemed like a good time to change the subject. “Speaking of risk, Dad,” Carly began with a smile in her voice, “are you still eating your meals over at Mad Bill’s Café?”
He laughed. “Bill’s going to be real hurt when I tell him you said that.”
Five minutes later, an impatient knock at Carly’s door terminated the conversation. She said goodbye to her father, went to the peephole and looked out.
Her arms folded, Janet was standing in the hallway, wearing her bathrobe.
Carly opened the door, and her friend swept into the room.
“You didn’t call,” Janet accused.
“I was talking with my dad,” Carly answered, grinning as she went into the kitchen to put on the teakettle. A nice cup of chamomile would help her sleep.
Janet followed her into the kitchenette. “Well? What’s going on? Is it over between you and Mark?”
Carly chuckled and shook her head. “No, but it sure is complicated. Jim is just an acquaintance, Janet—I want to make contacts.”
There was a pause while Janet inspected her freshly polished fingernails and Carly got mugs down from the cupboard, along with a box of herbal tea bags. “Maybe you could fix me up with him,” she finally said. “Jim, I mean.”
Carly smiled. “Sure,” she said gently. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“You’re a true friend.” Janet beamed. But then she glanced at her watch and frowned. “I’d better not stay for tea—I’m putting in some overtime tomorrow. Let me know when things are set.”
“I will,” Carly promised, following Janet to the door and closing and locking it behind her.
It was very late and Carly had to be up early the next morning herself, but even after drinking the chamomile tea, she couldn’t go to sleep. She got Mark’s play out, carried it to bed and began to read.
Again she was awed by the scope of the man’s talent—and a little jealous, too. No matter how hard she worked, it would be years before she was even in the same ballpark. In fact, in her heart Carly knew she would never be the caliber of journalist Mark was, and she wondered if she would be able to live with that fact and accept it.
Long after she had set the play aside and turned out the light, Carly lay in the darkness, thinking about it, envisioning it produced on a stage or movie screen. It would be remarkable in either medium.
A wild idea she barely dared to entertain came to her. The temptation to send the work to an agent was almost overpowering. After all, Mark had said the play was hers, that she could do what she wanted to with it.
Carly sighed. He’d been upset at the time.
Finally, after much tossing and turning, she was able to go to sleep.
It seemed to Carly that no more than five minutes could have passed when her eyes were suddenly flooded with spring sunlight from the window facing her bed. At the same time, Mark—it had to be Mark—was leaning on the doorbell.
Grabbing for her robe, Carly shrugged into it and went grumpily to the door. Sure enough, the peephole revealed Mark standing in the hallway.
Carly let him in, prepared for a lecture.
“You’re not ready,” he pointed out. “What kind of reporter are you, Barnett? There’s a whole world out there living, dying, loving and fighting. And here you are—” his eyes ran mischievously over her pink bathrobe “—standing around looking like a giant piece of cotton candy.”
Carly retreated a step and cinched her belt tighter. She knew the perils of standing too close to Mark Holbrook in a bathrobe. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes,” she said.
“Make it five,” Mark retorted, glancing pointedly at his watch. “We have a plane to catch.”
Carly stared at him. “A plane?”
Mark nodded, his hands tucked into his hip pockets. “If we’re going to write about fathers’ rights, Scoop, you’re going to have to do a little research on the subject. We’ll start by introducing you to Nathan.”
“But I can’t just leave—”
“Why do you think Clark gave me this story?” Mark interrupted. “He knows I’ve got my guts invested in it. And you’re my assistant. Therefore, where I go, you go. Now hurry up.”
Carly hurried into the bathroom, showered, and hastily styled her hair and put on light makeup. After that, she pulled a suitcase out from under the bed.
“How long are we going to be gone?” she called out.
Mark appeared in her doorway. He was sipping a cup of coffee, and he looked impossibly attractive in his jeans and Irish cable-knit sweater. “Long enough for you to see that women aren’t the only ones who sometimes have their rights trampled on,” he responded.
Carly wasn’t about to comment on that one—not before breakfast. She packed as sensibly as she could, tucking the play into her suitcase when Mark wasn’t looking, and left a message for Janet saying she’d be away on business for a while. Finally she and Mark set out for the airport in his car.
After they’d bought their tickets and checked in their baggage, they went to a busy restaurant for breakfast. Carly left the table for a few minutes, and when she returned, there was a long velvet box beside her orange juice.
Her hand trembled a little as she reached for it and lifted the lid to find a bracelet of square gold links. She was unable to speak when she lifted her eyes to Mark’s face.
He took the bracelet from the box and deftly clasped it around her wrist. “I can’t pretend this trip is strictly business, Carly,” he said, his eyes warm and serious. “I guess what it all boils down to is, I’m asking you to move in with me.”