Intimate Portraits (17 page)

“I hope so.” As if released,
words tumbled out. “Don’t you see, Autumn? You deserve someone better than Francisco,
better than me. Better than anyone like either of us. You need a man who can
give you a good life, someone who understands where you come from and who can
live up to… You deserve more than either of us could ever offer you.”

This outpouring was foreign,
unlike Rennie. She tried to laugh, but the sound was strained, clearly showing
her misery. “What if I think you’re wrong?”

“You might think it now, but
later you’d change your mind. No, Autumn, I can’t… If we kept kissing, it would
lead to something else, and then you’d despise me.”

“I wouldn’t.”

He paid no attention. “You’re too—you're
so different than us, Autumn. You’d never be happy with someone like us.”

How many times did he have to say
that? How long did he have to stumble around trying to find reasons for
rebuffing her that wouldn’t hurt her feelings?

The truth was he didn’t want her.
Period. Not for himself. Not for Fran.

She wasn’t good enough to be a
Degardovera.

He wasn’t finished. “You need
someone like Paul, someone who’s more—”

Despite the hot surge that
swelled her veins and lifted her breasts and filled her groin, despite the
shame of her throwing herself at him, his excuses broke through. “Paul?”

Great. Not only did he not want
her. He thought she deserved nothing better than a staid, dull banker.

Talk about humiliation. She might
have personality problems, but this was the ultimate slap in the face.

Well, she had some pride left. “I
guess I know what I need, thank you very much. And it isn’t anybody vaguely resembling
Paul Talliafierro. Why don’t you say what you mean, Rennie? That you don’t want
me, that I should leave you the hell alone?”

She meant to rush upstairs and
hide until she could compose herself, but when she turned, he caught her elbow
and whipped her around so fast that the long side of her hair flew straight
out.

He had recovered his fluency. “No,
no, Autumn, I meant you need somebody who shares your kind of background,
someone who knows the right kind of people, someone who’s not, who’s a member
of the Piedmont Driving Club. Someone who knows the ropes in your set and who
won’t disappoint or shame you.”

“My set? The Driving Club?” Her
jaw dropped. “One of the so-called movers and shakers who spends days planning
how much money he can bring to Atlanta or make from the poor souls who live
here? Or one of those dilettantes who golf rather than work like mere mortals? Is
that what you think of me, Rennie?”

Scalding fury, egged on by hurt, gushed
up and replaced the earlier drowning sweetness. She wrenched her arm away, forgetting
her arm socket was sore till the pain hit.

She winced, wrapped an arm around
the sore shoulder to ease it. “Thanks so much, Dr. Degardovera! I’ll have you
know I’ve never set foot in the hallowed Piedmont Driving Club except for the
stupid debutante parties Aunt Laura made me go to. Or whenever Uncle Parnell
took me with him. And they wouldn’t have belonged to it except Aunt Laura’s
father joined when it was the thing to do for business. Believe me, I’m
perfectly capable of choosing the kind of man I need. I don’t need anyone to do
it for me. You—you’re a real shit.”

He caught her wrists again, held
her in spite of her struggles. A low gurgling sound rose from his throat.

Laughter.

She had bared her soul and faced
his ridicule, and he had turned her down. Again. Now he was laughing at her. “Let
me go!”

Twisting away, she yanked her arm
away.

His grip tightened. His chuckle
deepened, turned into a breathy moan of annoyance. “You irrational woman, can’t
you see what I’m trying to say? I wouldn’t do for you, Autumn. Neither will
Francisco. If you and I—or if he were to make love to you—you’d hate either of
us within six months. We don’t know the people you know, Autumn, we haven’t
grown up the way you have. We aren’t the kind of people you’re accustomed to
being around. Can’t you see that?”

“What?” She couldn’t believe her
ears, that Rennie of all people would be a secret bigot. “Oh, I see all right. Thanks
so much for your learned opinion on my friends and my character,
Dr.
Degardovera.”
She was as near to losing control of herself as she had been in her entire
life. “For a doctor, you’re the most ignorant man I’ve ever met and I’ve met
quite a few, believe me.”

With a final heave, she jerked
loose and escaped before she completely gave way to a temper she never lost.

So he thought she was a
socialite, did he? One of the ex-debutantes whose days were filled with clothes
and skiing trips and island jaunts and charitable balls. Or worse, one of the fast
group Fran ran around with. Men and women who hooked up without bothering to
learn each others’ last names.

I thought I loved him but I don’t
even know him.

Upstairs, she slammed the door
and stood in the middle of the dim room, putting her hands to her flaming face
and shaking all over. She’d never been so mad.

She should never have allowed him
to hold her, kiss her. But she had. And she was foolhardy enough to kiss him
back when she knew in her heart he didn’t think of her that way.

A banging on the door made her
drop her hands.

“Autumn, let me in.”

“Go away!”

Anger died.

How humiliating. She had betrayed
herself. Not only had she clung to him—wrapped herself around him like a lust-struck
cat—but she’d all but begged him to make love to her.

Never again. I’m over you, Rennie
Degardovera. For good this time.

He kept banging on the door. “Autumn,
open the door.”

“Go away.”

“Damn it, let me in so I can
explain.”

“Go away, go away, go away!” She
couldn’t think of anything else to say except, “Leave me alone.”

She wouldn’t cry.

The door ripped open and he burst
into the room.

Her eyes popped, her mouth fell open.

He had forced the flimsy lock.

This was not Rennie. Rennie would
never break into her room like a madman.

But he had. His eyes flashed and
a curly lock of hair fell over his forehead while his face had more color
beneath its normal brown tint than she had ever seen. It was a stranger who
filled the small bedroom and menaced her.

She stepped back, away from this disturbing
intruder. She couldn’t come up with words strong enough to express her outrage.
“You, you—Don’t you touch me!”

He stopped and lowered hands that
had reached out. The volcanic eruption died so that he was again the Rennie she
loved. “I never meant to hurt your feelings. All I meant to say was… Ah, Autumn.
I couldn’t make you happy and you of all people deserve to be happy.”

Any remaining anger evaporated.

He believed that he was wrong for
her, that she would be better suited to a plodding banker like Paul Talliafierro.

Maybe he was right. She would
never be warm, outgoing, or assertive like the Degardoveras. Maybe she
should
find a nice staid man like Paul to share her life with.

She sighed, saw the broken lock. “We’ll
have to pay to get that door fixed.”

“What? What door?” He was
disconcerted. “No,” he said, waving a hand impatiently as she opened her mouth
to pinpoint exactly which door she meant, “don’t explain, it doesn’t matter. We’ve
got to talk. We can’t leave it like this between us. I don’t want you to be
upset. I don’t want you to think I don’t care about you.”

“It’s all right, Rennie. I was
mad with myself and taking it out on you. I wanted you.” What the heck, why not
turn herself inside out? Why not make her degradation complete while she had
the nerve? Then maybe she could find a convenient black hole to climb into. Or
a lake. Uh huh, there was a nice big lake right outside the cabin she could use
to drown herself in.

“I wanted to go to bed with you, Rennie.”
She studied her nails. They were their normal short and unpolished ovals, but
concentrating on them meant she didn’t have to see his disgust. “I wanted to
make love with you, and I thought you wanted to make love to me. I thought we
could share something together. Sorry. I misread the signals.”

“You…” It was his turn to pause.
His voice twisted, unwilling to say the words. “You didn’t misread the signals.”

The room about her stilled. She
dared a glance. The bare bulb overhead shone down with barely enough light to
put a sheen on his curls and expose his face.

It looked as drawn and miserable
as hers must.

Hope, disintegrated and thrown to
the winds, rematerialized. She waited, afraid to question him, afraid to
breathe for fear he’d say something to contradict what she thought she’d heard.

His eyes beneath thick eyebrows
were unfathomable in the gloom of the bedroom, his mouth screwed up and
vulnerable, almost pleading. His tongue slid over the bottom of white teeth as
if trying to keep words from emerging.

They came out anyway, low and
ragged. “There’s nothing I’d like better than to have sex with you, Autumn, to
make love to you. You don’t know… I’d give anything to be able to do it. But it
would change everything between us. We couldn’t be friends any more if we went
to bed together.”

“We couldn’t?” She blinked away
the pricking in her eyes.

“No.”

He was using the ‘friend’ excuse.
What he meant, no matter what he said, was that he wasn’t interested. She’d
broken off relationships herself saying she’d rather be friends, broken them
off even though she’d liked the man. When she’d known deep down she would never
love him as she loved Rennie.

Pulling back was the honorable
thing to do when someone attracted you, but you knew it wouldn’t work.

And Rennie was honorable.
Unfortunately.

She never shed tears in front of
anyone, and this was no place to start. Not here in front of Rennie. She wouldn’t
break down, but she couldn’t stop loving him either. Both habits were too ingrained.
“I understand, Rennie. It’s quite all right.”

“Autumn.” The words sounded as if
they were being dragged from his throat. “You’re not like us.”

“No, I’m not. And you can never
care for me because I’m too different. I’m not your type. I’m a boring, pitiful
woman you feel sorry for but will never love except as a friend. Thank you very
much, Rennie. You’ve made your feelings crystal clear. I understand you
perfectly. I won’t bother you again.”

So there. She sounded brittle but
composed.

He reached out a hand, caught her
chin when she would have turned away, forced her to look at him. “I do care for
you, Autumn. You don’t know how much. I could so easily give in.” His head
swayed toward her, stopped. His eyes, their deep brown almost black, bored into
hers.

Hurt filled her, compressed her
lungs. “Then what more do you want from me?”

“I could make love to you, right
here and now,” he whispered. His grip on her chin tightened, pressed against the
bones underneath until it seemed his hand would become a part of her jaw. “You
felt me, you know I want you. I could easily throw you down on that bed and forget
everything I believe. But afterwards, what then?”

Hope wasn’t dead after all. He
wasn’t sending her away as he had when she was seventeen. He was about to kiss
her again and if he did, what he’d said earlier didn’t matter, couldn’t matter.

She swallowed. “Afterwards we’d
still be the same people, Rennie. We’ll still be friends.”

“No.” He bent closer. “We wouldn’t
be the same. Habits and faults and differences that are tolerated in friends
are fatal for lovers.”

“So you’re saying you could make
love to me and enjoy it, but you don’t think sex would make up for my faults,”
she said slowly, feeling her way.

He leaned forward. “Don’t put
words in my mouth. You don’t have any faults, Autumn. And I have too many. That’s
the problem.”

His breath stroked her cheek. He
was going to kiss her and when he did, they would make love. This time there
would be no pulling back.

Downstairs, a door opened.

Whatever might have happened was
lost.

The murmur of voices drifted
upstairs, and then Norma called, “Autumn, Rennie. Where are you? Paul and I’ve come
to say goodbye before we head back to Atlanta.”

“And to give Paul time to recover
from that polka before he has to drive back.” Fran’s teasing words floated up
the stairwell followed by Victoria’s uninhibited, hearty guffaw.

Rennie’s lips, about to touch
Autumn’s, pulled away.

He dropped his hand from her chin
and stepped back, pale as she’d ever seen him. “I guess the Festhalle wasn’t so
much fun after all.”

She would die, she would surely
die.

So close to holding him, kissing
him, loving him, having him. And still as far away as before.