Seductive Reasoning (25 page)

The sound of the show’s familiar
theme music drew her attention. Kate watched as the off-camera announcer
signaled Ms. Landers by holding up his hand and counting backward from five.

“Good evening, Denver!” The
audience responded to Ms. Lander’s statement with a flurry of clapping and
shrill whistles.

“Welcome to the Martina Landers
Show.” Ms. Landers looked out over the audience. Their chart sat on an easel to
the left of the sofa. “What a crowd. Thank you all so much for coming out
tonight. This could be our biggest audience yet.” She smiled and clapped her
hands right along with the audience. Kate wished a hole would open up in the
floor so she could drop through it and disappear. The humiliation she felt was
acute.

“As most of you know, we usually
have a different slate each week,” Ms. Landers began, “a diverse set of guests
who discuss tantalizing and intriguing topics. Tonight we are welcoming back
one of our guests from last week. Remember the lingerie shop owner and the
astronomy professor?”

The audience responded with a whirl
of applause.

“For our viewers who missed last
week’s show, let me give you a quick recap.”

Kate could barely listen to Ms.
Lander’s summary of their appearance on the show the week before. She’d been
perfectly fine before Seth Fallon waltzed into her life and screwed everything
up. She had plans, big plans, to take her designs to the national level. Kate
Summers Lingerie Inc. She was going to be a household name like Martha Stewart
and Victoria’s Secret. Her family was finally going to see her and her business
as something important, something valuable, and not just a girl who sold
underwear for a living.

“Please welcome Ms. Kate Summers.”

Kate jerked her attention from her
thoughts back to the set. All she needed to do was slip back into the routine
of her life before she’d met Seth, and then she could move forward. She
smoothed her hands over her dress and tried to push back the rush of misery
battering her heart.

Ms. Lander’s gaze darted from the
audience to Kate. “I wanted to thank you for coming back on our show. I am
disappointed that Dr. Fallon didn’t bother to show up. We will need to confirm
your statement of what happened and compare it to his.

“Now, can you tell our viewing
audience what happened? Did he change his mind altogether, or did you two have
a falling out? I’m assuming this past week turned out to be more about
intelligence and logic than about stardust and sexy nights. Am I correct in
that assumption?”

Time to put on her game face and go
ahead with the show. If Seth wasn’t going to show up, she would make the best
of it. There was a check waiting with her name on it. Why did the thought of
claiming that check make her feel sick inside? Her victory was hollow now
without Seth to share it with her. Only it wasn’t her victory, it was his.

To prepare herself, Kate reached
for a glass of water that sat on the table in front of them and sipped. She set
the glass back on the table and exhaled a deep breath. “Professor Fallon and I
both had an agenda as the week began. I was determined to seduce him, and he
was determined to resist me.”

“And?” Ms Lander’s voice sounded
eager. “Please tell us what we’ve been waiting to hear. Were you successful in
your seduction, or was Dr. Fallon successful in convincing you that a person’s
mind and intelligence are most important?”

Kate forced a smile. “Maybe a
little of both.”

“Could you be more specific? After
all, we have twenty-five thousand dollars to give away.” Ms. Landers shifted in
her seat and gestured toward the chart resting on the easel. “Perhaps you’d
like to tell us about some of your experiments.”

Kate rose from the sofa, walked to
the graph, and pointed to the top line. She explained their findings briefly as
she ran her finger across the steadily climbing lines. “We did get some
unexpected responses and reactions.”

“What do you mean by unexpected?”
Ms. Landers asked.

Kate tucked a strand of hair behind
her ear. “Well, a few of the more conservative male customers experienced a bit
of shock and surprise at some of the garments their wives and girlfriends tried
on for them.”

Kate paused and smiled. “I remember
specifically this older couple who came in. They were perhaps in the mid to
late sixties. She was bent on reviving their sex life. The poor guy laughed
nervously and turned beet red. I thought he was going to have a stroke over
what she had chosen. But a day later, she dropped by with a wink and a smile.
Guess that hot pink teddy was just the ticket.”

“That’s very interesting, Ms.
Summers. It certainly sounds like people of all ages shop at your store.”

“Yes. You’d be amazed at the
enormous interest in lingerie.” Kate returned to her chair, and Ms. Landers
turned her attention to the studio audience. “Would any of you like to hear
about the actual experiments they performed?”

The audience shouted with a
resounding
yes
. “Ms. Summers, tell us about the very first time you
tried to seduce Dr. Fallon.”

Kate squirmed in her seat. She
didn’t want to talk about the little lap dance she did for him in the kitchen,
or the lingerie she’d shimmied her body into for his eyes only. She didn’t want
to share her desire for him when she’d slipped into that pale, white gown and
had his eyes bugging out.

And certainly not what happened
afterward. What had passed between them was far too intimate, far too personal
to discuss on television. Discussing it in a public forum was inappropriate and
would cheapen what they had shared. No way was she going to share with them the
moment her poor heart slid hopelessly into love with him.

But everyone was waiting for her to
respond. She had to say something. Damn Seth for leaving her in the lurch this
way. She was a businesswoman. She persuaded, she convinced and informed her
customers about lingerie and astrology with the facts, with a book of love
poems and information on their particular sign.

She could do the same thing here.
“We went about the process in a very logical but romantic manner. I modeled
some of my creations; we talked about his overall reaction and plotted it on
the chart.”

Ms. Landers leaned forward. “Miss
Summers, would you care to elaborate on your statement? What were some of his
reactions to the lingerie?”

Kate sipped some more water. “Dr.
Fallon’s reactions were fairly typical and unsurprising. He reacted the way any
normal, healthy heterosexual male would to seeing a woman in sexy lingerie. His
temperature rose slightly, his pulse sped past its normal rate, and his heart
picked up rhythm.”

Ms. Landers smiled and her eyes lit
with mischief. “Oh, come now, Miss Summers. Surely you can be a bit more
specific.”

Kate twisted her hands together in
her lap. “Let me make something very clear. What happened between Dr. Fallon
and me wasn’t about winning or losing. There was no agenda, there was no win,
lose, or draw. There was only the two of us, and it honestly had nothing to do
with money.”

Anxiety churned through Kate’s
stomach. She bit her lip, lowered her chin for a moment, and then brought her
gaze back to Ms. Landers’. “Now, I have the brass ring in my hand. I can feel
it. The dream I’ve been reaching for is within my grasp. All I have to do is
admit the truth.”

Ms. Landers smiled, her eyes
alighting with glee. “The truth that you seduced him?”

She sighed. “I put in years of work
on my business. I started small and it wasn’t easy to find a reliable
sub-contractor, set up regular shipping schedules, and implement new designs in
addition to keeping the old ones.

“Not to mention bookkeeping,
adhering to a budget, and running the shop itself. The hard work didn’t bother
me; I loved every minute of it. Creating something from nothing was exciting
for me and fulfilled me in a way I never thought possible. I’ve learned a lot
since I started the company, but I must admit I learned more this past week
from Dr. Fallon than I ever thought possible.”

“Do you mean in or out of the
bedroom?” Ms. Landers asked.

Both. But she couldn’t say it on
the air. “I was fascinated by his thought processes and how his mind works. I
even attended one of his lectures at the university. Dr. Fallon has a gift for teaching
and a respect for astronomy.” She just wished he had enough respect for her to
actually show up. Kate was dying inside, little pieces of her at the time.
Humiliation slowly chipped them away. Would there be nothing left of her pride
by the time this show was over? She paused for a moment, gripped her hands
together, and squeezed. A realization floated through her brain and invaded her
heart. Men had pride. A lot of pride. So much so that sometimes their ego got
in the way.

Was Seth not here because he just
couldn’t face his failure? She knew how much the bet meant to him and how much
he had riding on the money. “I know how much his project meant to him, and I
want more than anything for him to realize his dream. He’s worked just as hard
as me, if not harder. But sales have picked up since our last appearance on the
show. E-mail orders are coming in so fast I can hardly keep up with them.
There’s no telling what might happen after tonight. The possibilities are
endless.”

She tried to look excited and heartened
by hope and prospects for the future, but inside she really felt hollow. She
wanted Seth to have that bright future, to reach each and every one of his
goals, to finish his project and gain the recognition in the astronomical world
he wanted so badly. “What I’m saying, Ms. Landers, is that nothing happened
between Dr. Fallon and me. He was the Rock of Gibraltar, and no matter what I
did, no matter how hard I tempted him, I could not get him to go all the way.”

A kind of collective gasp of shock
swelled from the audience and resonated on the air. Ms. Landers shook her head
and gazed out over the audience. “Well, you heard it here, folks. All of that
sexy lingerie wasn’t able to convince this professor to take the plunge, so to
speak.” The audience snickered at her choice of words. Ms. Landers turned back
to Kate. “Miss Summers would you agree then that--” Ms. Landers jerked her head
to the left of the stage. She shifted in her seat and sat up straighter. “Well,
here is the Rock of Gibraltar now.”

The audience erupted into a
cacophony of whistles and applause. Seth walked onto the set, his gaze firmly
fixed on Kate. His nerves were calm; he no longer dreaded being in a social
forum, and his tie didn’t feel like a hangman’s noose. Kate had done that for
him.

Outside, a storm brewed. Thunder,
hard and ominous clamored through the air of the studio and mingled with the
reaction of the audience. A jagged ball of hot pressure seared his gut, but it
had nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with Kate.

He settled next to Kate on the
sleek, leather sofa. He curled his fingers around her hand and clung. She’d
twisted her hair up into a messy knot on the back of her head. Her neck, pale
as a swan’s, beckoned him. He knew the silkiness of her skin, how she felt, how
she responded when he touched her. He knew the scent of her and how Kate’s
unique vanilla perfume grew stronger, more pungent when she was aroused.

“I’m glad you finally made it, Dr.
Fallon,” Ms. Landers said. “We’ve been discussing the week that you and Kate
spent together, and she just admitted--”

Seth held up his hand to stop her.
“Please Ms. Landers. I have something I’d like to say here. Now. To Kate and to
this studio audience.”

“By all means, go ahead, Dr.
Fallon. We’re all ears.”

Kate stared at him. A mixture of
surprise, hurt, and confusion swam in the green of her eyes.

She smiled. “I didn’t think you
were going to make it.”

Her sweet sexy voice whispered over
him, caressed his nerves and stroked the love he held in his heart for her like
skilled fingers on the strings of a violin. In just a few days, she’d managed
to turn his life upside down. “I had a little errand to run first. I’m sorry
you thought I walked out on you.”

Last week he’d felt mostly lust,
but now love overwhelmed him. He still wanted her more than he needed to
breathe, but touching her, making love with her, did so much more than
alleviate the sexual tension that always arced between them.

She settled his soul.

Kate held his vulnerability in her
hands and wiped away his fear of revealing that deep emotion to anyone.

She leaned toward him, the gentle
sway of her body so familiar now his heart ached. Her vanilla scent clouded his
mind. She lifted her hands and smoothed them over the lapels of his jacket.
“You look nice.”

Kate’s simple compliment pleased
him. He wanted her, needed her to be proud of him. But most of all he needed
her to love him.

Seth enclosed her hands in his and
brought her fingers to his lips. He kissed each of her knuckles in turn,
savoring the taste and texture of her skin. “Thanks. You look beautiful.”

Kate slipped her hands from his.
The softness of her skin enveloped him and he knew that the feel of her touch
would never leave him.

A fleeting smile rippled over her
mouth. Her eyes, full of emotions Seth found difficult to read, studied him for
a moment. “You know, Seth, a week ago I was really looking forward to appearing
on the show again, but tonight I wished I didn’t have to go through with it.”

Seth’s heart leaped as it had when
he was a child on Christmas morning when he’d found a shiny new telescope next
to the tree. Could she mean that she actually cared for him, maybe even loved
him? Could she be about to tell him that winning the money wasn’t all that
important now?

Why couldn’t he pretend that nothing
important had happened between them? Because it had. Making love with Kate had
set his world on its end and had meant everything to him. “Why didn’t you want
to go through with it? You’ve won.”