Promises in the Night: A Classic Romance - Book 2 (9 page)

“It wouldn’t do to have two Marie Antoinettes in the same session, would it?” Alex couldn’t help the chuckle in his voice.

“You think I’m joking, but we had two men come to blows—they both thought they were Humphrey Bogart.”

This time Alex couldn’t hold back his laughter, “I should set up a practice right here.”

“Larkin would never go for that, but I think it’s a great idea.” Patti’s enormous blue eyes sparkled at the prospect.

“I’m almost afraid to ask who Larkin was in her past life.”

“There are days I’d swear she was Genghis Khan, but she’d probably say Joan of Arc.”

Alex listened while the turbaned medium brought the class back to “this dimension of reality.” One by one the women began to stretch, as if awakening from a long steep.

He caught Larkin’s eye, and she rose from the floor in one graceful motion and came toward him. Her extravagantly long hair was piled loosely on top of her head and big gold hoops dangled from her ears. Her smile was open and guileless, and in that instant he knew he had never seen a more beautiful woman in this life—or any other. The look she gave him set him on fire.

“Don’t tell me,” Patti said, “I already know. You were Joan of Arc.”

Larkin shook her head and a long strand of hair fell across her shoulder. It took all of his self-control not to wrap its silky length around his hand.

“No, Franklin, I was Ivan the Terrible. Don’t you have anything better to do than stand around smart-mouthing your employer?”

Patti gave Alex one of her patented come-hither looks. “I wouldn’t mind joining you and the good doctor for lunch.”

“I don’t recall inviting you along,” Larkin said, winking at Alex.

Patti grinned. “A minor oversight. I have nothing against last minute invitations, Larkin. Some of my best evenings were impromptu.”

Alex was about to follow up on that intriguing statement when Larkin shook her head. “Don’t encourage her, Alex. She already has a lunch date of her own.”

“We could make it a foursome.”

Alex laughed. “Another time, Patti.”

Patti leered outrageously. “Another time I’d like it to be just the two of us.”

“Don’t you have some work to do?” Larkin asked.

Patti mumbled something about Larkin being Mussolini’s second incarnation and disappeared down the hallway.

“So, tell me,” Alex said as he and Larkin headed to her office to get her coat and shoes, “who were you in your past life?”

Larkin slipped into her shoes and reached for her coat. “Would you believe a one-legged Swedish coal miner?”

“Not really.” He held her bright red coat for her while she slid her arms into it. The scent of her perfume made him want to kick the door closed and pull her into his embrace. “Everyone else seemed to expect a royal past life.”

“I’m afraid I was no exception.” She unpinned her hair and let it flow over her collar and down her back. “I wanted to discover I’d lived the pampered life of a king’s favorite lady, and instead I discover I was a one-legged coal miner! I didn’t even have the good sense to be rich.”

“Demand your money back,” he said. “I’ve heard the management is quite reasonable.”

“If I’d paid for that session, I would,” Larkin said. “That was hardly the stuff of my romantic fantasies.”

“You have elaborate fantasies?”
Dangerous question,
he thought. He only wanted an answer if he figured prominently in them.

“That’s privileged information, wouldn’t you say?” The look she gave him was so sexy that it nearly buckled his knees.

“You can tell me,” he managed coolly, almost as if his body weren’t on red alert. “I’m a doctor—I’ve heard it all before.”

She perched on the edge of her desk while she fished through her pocketbook for something. “I’ve always had a yen for those old swashbuckler movies Tyrone Power and Errol Flynn made. I can’t imagine anything more romantic than being stranded on a desert isle with a man in a billowy white shirt slashed down to there, tight pants and thigh-high black leather boots.”

“Kinky, but within the bounds of reason.”

“I’m glad you approve. I debated whether or not to mention the
de rigueur
gold hoop earrings.”

“What about the foul-mouthed parrot on his shoulder?”

She made a face. “Have you ever seen a pirate’s shoulder after a parrot has been there? No, thanks. I can live without the wildlife.”

“My fantasies are simpler,” Alex said as they walked through the winding hallway back to the reception area. “A harem of voluptuous belly dancers would make me happy.”

“I’m sure it would,” Larkin said dryly. “You and every other man on earth.”

He was enjoying the slight undercurrent of jealousy in her voice when they entered the lobby of the Center and came face-to-face with what seemed like enough long-stemmed American Beauty roses to cover three floats for the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day. Patti and a slender woman he didn’t recognize stood in the center of the profusion of flowers.

“Are we giving a workshop on flower arranging and someone forgot to tell me?” Larkin gingerly stepped over a basket of fat red blossoms and looked at Patti.

Patti faked a loud sneeze. “If you have hay fever, you’re in big trouble.” She gestured around the room. “The delivery boy from Glo-Dot said there’s a card, but when it comes to which basket it’s in, your guess is as good as mine.”

Alex saw a small white envelope poking out of a tall arrangement on the floor next to the receptionist’s desk. Larkin’s name was written diagonally across the front in slashing black letters.

“I found it.” He handed Larkin the envelope.

She thanked him and pulled out a shiny white card, “Come on!” Patti squealed. “Gestures like this are in the public domain. Who is it from?”

Larkin looked so uncomfortable that Alex almost wished she wouldn’t say who the mysterious gift giver was, but his curiosity was gnawing away at his insides.

“Vladimir,” she said finally, then tossed the card down on the desk. Patti’s huge blue eyes seemed to be growing larger by the second. “Come on, Alex. Let’s go to lunch.”

Later on, Alex would wish he’d been able to control his curiosity, but on the way out he glanced down at the card on the desk. The words “Larkin, my love: 29 November is too long to wait” instantly burned straight through his gut.

She was thirty years old, and he’d assumed she’d had her share of life’s experiences. However, Alex hated it like hell that one of those experiences sent her a roomful of roses and was counting the days until November twenty-ninth.

Larkin was saying something to him as they crossed the parking lot to his rented car, and he tried to form an intelligent response. Unfortunately, there was but one coherent thought in his brain right then, and that one thought crowded out everything else.

Who the hell was Vladimir?

A
mazing
how something as innocuous as red roses could ruin an afternoon.

Vladimir’s characteristically excessive gesture only amused Larkin, but if his scowl were any indication, it had sent Alex into a tailspin. Apparently even the most gifted of psychologists was not above the daily traumas of more ordinary mortals.

Twenty minutes later they were sitting in Steve’s Pier I at one of the coveted tables with a breathtaking view of Long Island Sound. Unfortunately, they might as well have had a view of the parking lot for all the enjoyment the scenery was affording them.

Conversation had been limited to the weather and clams oreganato, and Larkin was now out of patience.

She pushed her white wine away from her and put her linen napkin on the table. Alex looked up from his salad.

“That’s it,” she said, picking up her handbag from the floor beside her chair. “I’ve exhausted every conversational gambit in my repertoire. I give up, Alex. I’m going to take a cab back to the school. Thanks for lunch.”

She began to rise, praying that he would stop her.

“You haven’t had lunch yet.”

She met his eyes. “I’ve lost my appetite.”

“Have I been that disagreeable?”

“You’ve been terrible.”

“I apologize,” he said. “Stay.”

Her prayers were answered. “Will you tell me what’s wrong?”

“I think you already know.”

“The flowers?”

He nodded. “I thought I had evolved past jealousy like that. It took me by surprise.”

Her only prior experience with jealousy had been one-sided: the sickening feeling in her stomach each time she heard rumors of Vladimir with another woman during their relationship.

“The flowers were from Vladimir Karpov.” She waited for a glimmer of recognition but none came. “He defected from the Bolshoi Ballet five years ago. Do you remember that incident in the New York Public Library? The Russian embassy made a big deal about it.”

Alex nodded but said nothing.

“Vladimir is opening his own dance company and he’ll be speaking at the Learning Center in November on the romance of ballet.”

“There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”

“Yes,” she said. “We used to be lovers.”

He flinched slightly. No one else would have noticed, but Larkin was so attuned to his discomfort that the slightest movement ricocheted through her own body.

“He’ll be in New York in November to dance at Lincoln Center,” she said. “Speaking at my school will give him plenty of free publicity and bring me a hell of a lot of new clients.”

“You make it sound very cut-and-dried.”

She couldn’t help but notice a flicker of relief on Alex’s face. “It is,” she said, suddenly not all that certain she was telling the truth. “We’ve managed to stay friendly. This is a mutually advantageous business deal. Nothing more.”

It would be easy to say that, while the love was long over, friendship remained, but that merely scratched the surface of a very complex truth: she couldn’t wait for Vladimir to see the woman she had become. In her success, she wanted him to realize all he’d lost when she walked out the door.

Alex remained silent. A waitress in black pants and a white tuxedo shirt deposited their lunch in front of them and discreetly hurried away.

Larkin shifted in her seat. If Alex didn’t say something in the next five seconds, she was going to tip the entire dish of sole meuniere onto the lap of his expensive Italian suit.

Finally he looked up. “You’ve told me more than I have any right to know, Larkin. Thank you.”

She watched him intently. “I didn’t know any other way to approach this, Alex.” She did, however, withhold the pain she’d felt over Vladimir’s infidelities and the long struggle she’d had to recover her balance.

At least you know what you’re up against,
she thought as his grey eyes met hers. She and Vladimir had come to a normal parting of the ways. Alex and Rikki had been tragically torn apart.

She would much rather be able to see her competition face-to-face than have to live up to a memory.

Real people had faults.

Memories rarely had any at all.

A
lex would have given
anything to begin that afternoon all over again.

They were sitting at a table for two, but the shadows of Vladimir and Rikki were so real that he was tempted to pull up two more chairs and invite them to sit down.

How much easier it was to love when you were young—when experience was limited and expectations still ran high. How much safer it was to give your heart to someone when you still believed in forever.

What he wanted was the impossible: to keep his memories of Rikki alive and to wipe Karpov out of Larkin’s heart forever.

Sexist. Unfair. Impossible.

But so damnably human that he couldn’t resist a laugh of defeat. Her enormous green eyes were shadowed with caution as she looked at him.

“You realize I want the impossible, don’t you?” he asked.

“Don’t we all?” A smile played at the edges of her mouth. “Why should you be any different?”

“Because I was trained to believe I was,” he said. “I’m supposed to solve these problems, not get caught up in them.”

“You’re only human, Alex.” Her voice was tender, unbearably so.

“So I’m learning.”

Larkin toyed with the spoon in her coffee cup. “I feel at a disadvantage,” she said slowly. “I know very little about you beyond the fact that you’re a psychologist and that you lost your wife.”

And so he told her about his parentless childhood and the foster homes in the Bronx and Brooklyn. He told her about Rikki and the way she brought a boy of thirteen to life with her unquestioning love. He told her about the struggle through City College about endless work and endless love.

“We’d really made it,” he said over his fourth cup of coffee. Larkin was still watching him, eyes glistening. “The student loans were paid off; I’d established a practice. Rikki was able to quit work and we were going to start a family.” He had to clear his throat before he could continue. “Only problem was, starting a family was the one thing we didn’t seem able to do.”

The joke between them had been; start a family or take flying lessons. Of course, it had never really been a contest—he wanted a child
as
much as she did. The private pilot’s license and the Cessna 207 would be next.

“They kept saying to relax, take it easy, take a vacation. It’ll happen. When it did, we felt as if we had discovered a new universe. Unfortunately, Rikki miscarried in her third month, and a routine D and C turned up a very non-routine, invasive cancer. Ten months later she was dead.”

Tears slid down Larkin’s cheeks, and she reached over to take his hand.

“It’s ironic,” he said, linking his fingers with hers. “The best part of my life is spent in the cockpit of that damned Cessna, and I would trade it in a second if it would bring Rikki back.”

Larkin didn’t say anything at all, simply held his hand and shared his pain.

It was a hell of a thing to talk about with the woman he was wooing, but she had wanted to know, and she deserved the truth. He couldn’t minimize what he’d shared with Rikki to maximize what he wanted to share with Larkin. Both women deserved better treatment than that, even if it meant romance took a back seat to reality for the moment.

If what they had together was the real thing, the romance would take care of itself when the time was right. Of that he had no doubt.

L
arkin’s emotions
were closing in on her.
You asked for it, Walker. You wanted to know all about him.

She watched as Alex maneuvered the car onto Sagtikos State Parkway and headed south back to the school. Their long, surprisingly intimate lunch had taken them beyond the need for small talk.

Alex had popped a cassette of The Temptations into the tape player and he was humming along to “My Girl” in a slightly off-key bass that made her smile. He seemed to have lost some of that aura of sadness that she had noticed the first time they met, and for that Larkin was grateful.

However, knowing he had been married and lost his wife was vastly different from knowing he had loved a woman named Rikki who had adored him since eighth grade—a woman who had provided him with the only stable family life he had ever known.

It was a tough act to follow.

Twenty minutes later they pulled into the parking lot at the Center, and Alex pulled in next to her red Datsun.

“It went longer than I. thought,” he said, helping her out of the low-slung sports car he’d rented. “I hope it didn’t cause you any problems.”

She smiled. “That’s one of the great things about being the boss. I don’t have to explain myself to anyone.”

The parking lot was empty, except for Patti’s and Sharon’s cars over near the fence. Alex leaned against the side of the sports car and pulled Larkin into his arms.

“This was hardly the romantic interlude I’d envisioned,” he said, stroking her hair. “I’m sorry.”

His touch made it difficult to think clearly. “Don’t be,” she managed. “We had to talk about these things sometime, didn’t we?”

“I’d hoped we could postpone that until later in our relationship.”

So had she. “I should be getting in, Alex. I teach a tap dancing class at four-thirty.”

“Sounds interesting. Suppose I could audit a session some day?”

She grinned. “You name the day. I’ll expect you in white tie and tails.”

“You teach Fred Astaire routines?”

“Of course,” she said. “We’re a first class establishment.”

The banter was light and easy, but she couldn’t quite shake the odd emotions the afternoon had stirred up inside her.

“Dinner Wednesday?” He brushed a kiss along the side of her jaw.

She shook her head. “I’m moderating a panel that night. Thursday?”

“My
Helpline
taping. We’re doing a live show and putting three more in the can.”

“Our schedules seem to be incompatible,” she said. “Is there any hope for us?” The statement was meant to sound ironic and witty. Unfortunately, it came out sounding exactly the way she felt—melancholy.

“I’ll call you tonight,” he said. “We’ll compare calendars. It’ll work out, Larkin. I promise.”

She would have believed him twenty-four hours ago. Now she wasn’t sure about anything.

At least, she wasn’t sure until he put his hand gently beneath her chin and raised her face for his kiss. Desire rose within her but was overshadowed by an intense sweetness that took her by surprise.

The sound of an unmuffled engine broke the spell they were under. Larkin looked up to see Gordon parking his Chevy near his sister’s car. He cut the engine and got out. He still hadn’t looked their way.

“How’s your cold, Gordon?” Larkin called out. “You should have stayed out another day.”

He stopped about twenty feet away from Larkin and Alex. “I’m okay,” he mumbled. “Patti said the roof needs more work.” He looked at Alex when he spoke.

“Well, don’t overdo it,” Larkin said. She noticed his color seemed unusually high. “We need you too much to have you getting sick again.”

She was about to introduce him to Alex when he turned abruptly and went into the school.

“He’s so shy.” Larkin looked up at Alex. “He doesn’t mean to be rude.”

“You’re wrong,” Alex said. “He meant it.”

“Why would he be rude to me? We’ve never had any problems.”

“He wasn’t being rude to you, Larkin. That was directed toward me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you?” Alex asked. “It’s pretty obvious he’s infatuated with you.”

She could feel her cheeks reddening. “I know he’s grateful for the job, but—”

Alex kissed her again. “Being grateful is one thing, Larkin. What. I’m talking about is something else again.”

“He’s Patti’s brother, Alex. I hardly think I have to worry.”

Alex seemed unconvinced, but he let the subject drop. Could he possibly be jealous of someone as young and callow as Gordon Franklin? What a delightful thought.

He walked her to the door and they kissed one more time. Alex again promised to call her later that night. He still seemed a little disturbed by Gordon’s behavior.

“Gordon is just a sweet kid with a few problems,” she said, touching Alex’s lips with the tip of her index finger. “There’s nothing to worry about. Now let me get back to work.”

A
lex couldn’t get
Gordon out of his thoughts.

There’s nothing to worry about.
Larkin was probably right. Why in hell was he getting so rattled by a young man with a case of unrequited love?

Alex pushed aside the galleys of his
Metro Monthly
article on the singles’ seminar and rubbed his eyes. For hours now, he had been unable to get Gordon Franklin out of his mind. There had been something about the expression in Gordon’s eyes as he looked at him, an intensity that seemed excessive for the situation. It wasn’t hard to understand the jealousy Gordon might have felt seeing Larkin in his arms, but the look of anger on his young face had gotten beneath Alex’s skin.

You’re making too much of it,
he thought, lighting a cigarette. Infatuation. That’s all it was. The kid was head over heels for Larkin. Who could blame him for having his gut twist when he saw her in the arms of another man?

All Alex had to do was think about the red roses in Larkin’s office and the card written in Karpov’s sprawling hand to understand everything Gordon Franklin was feeling.

Alex only hoped he handled himself half as well when he came face-to-face with his own rival.

I
t took
Patti until six o’clock to find spots for all the roses. Larkin had just finished her tap class and was resting on the sofa in her office, sipping a Diet Coke. Rose petals were scattered all over the carpet, tabletops and file cabinets.

“Well, now I know where this came from,” Larkin said, fingering the ballet charm she’d received a few weeks ago. “Vladimir.”

Patti gazed around at the flower-filled room. “It kind of makes you wonder what he’s going to send next.”