Turn Back the Dawn (3 page)

"Would that be possible?" he asked softly.

A slow smile began as she looked into his eyes. "I think
so.

"Let's," he murmured.

For a moment, as his amber gaze held her eyes in a
simmering pull of warmth, as she was aware of his nearness, his scent, his obvious desire, she thought he might
lean over and kiss her. She almost hoped he would, yet
feared it. For she knew she would melt under one touch
of his warm hands, one breath against her cheek, one
touch of his lips against hers.

She wanted to look away. The pull was too intense;
there were too many unknowns.

But he was making her feel wonderful—desirable,
beautiful, wanted. And she wanted to flirt, to watch him
respond, to know that he wanted her.

And
so, instead of looking away, or backing off, or
pretending
she didn't notice the heated wanting in his
gaze,
she kept her eyes on his. She slowly inhaled, her
heart
racing as the warmth in their gaze burst into flame.
And
then she reached out and gently stroked his hand.

The
moment she touched him, he drew in his breath
sharply,
and she knew that for him, as for her, the touch
was like
fire. "Sometime," she said softly. "Whenever this
is
all over."

His eyes
were heavy with desire, and his hand moved
and covered
hers, sending waves of warm need through

her.

"Why not
sooner?" he murmured. "Why not tonight?"

She smiled—
a lazy, seductive smile that took all the
ed
ge
off the
words she next said. "You know very well.
We've already
agreed. There's the not very small matter
of
undue
influence."

Looking
into her eyes, he stroked the palm of her hand
with a coaxing
touch that made her breathless, made her
thin
k of all
the ways he could make her tremble with
pleasure
.
"I
wish you didn't feel that way," he said quietly.

"But I think
I understand. I don't promise to play by your
rules
,
Kate,
but I promise I'll try."

A
few minutes
later, after Ben had left, Kate wondered
whether
she
hadn't already been unduly influenced. For
she
couldn't forget
the enticing beckoning of his hazel
eyes
,
couldn't
wait to feel his gentle touch and hear his
care
ssing voice once again.

Later on, as her
memory of Ben Austin had been colored
by events of the day,
she wondered: had he been all
that sh
e had thought—
charming, sincere, attractive
—
or
had she only made him seem that way? For as she looked forward to the bleak prospect of making a decision about Kurt, she knew that subconsciously, at least, Kurt's bad qualities were making Ben Austin look very good indeed.

And if she knew herself—which, at the age of thirty, she felt she did—she was interested in someone who was certain to turn out to be yet another Mr. Wrong.

CHAPTER TWO

I he next
day Kate saw the last of the presentations for the
new
ad campaign. While this agency had all the en
thusiasm
she could ask for, there was no question about
the
presentation; in terms of goals, strategies, and actual
content,
Blake-Canfield's had been far and away the most
promising.
Now all she had to do was convince Dick
Dayton
and Andrew Smithfield, the two Ivorsen and
Shaw
board members who had traditionally—for a total
of at least
fifty years, from what Kate could tell—ruled on
advertising
matters.

L
ater
in the afternoon, as she assembled the presenta
tions of
the three agencies on the conference table, she
wondered:
was the difference between Blake-Canfield's and
the other
two as obvious as she felt it was? She had a
lways been
thoroughly professional in her work, trying
not to allow
her personal feelings to affect her judgment.
With Kurt,
for instance, she had always been completely strai
ghtforward
about his work, even at the height of her i
nvolvement
with him: if she thought something looked gre
at, she told
him, and if she thought something looked
like hell, she
told him that, too. But now, with Ben Aus-
tin s work, she wasn't altogether certan she was acting
completely impartially.

For there was something eating away at her, grabbing
at her heart even as she looked at the presentations. She
wanted to see him again. She couldn't get around that
thought, or pretend it didn't exist, or separate it from her
feelings about his work. For even as she looked at something as prosaic as his sales projections, she imagined him
coming around behind her, putting his arms around her
waist, gently kissing the back of her neck. She imagined
how he would feel standing behind her—his hard thighs
against the softness of her shape, his strong arms clasping
her gently yet firmly, the touch of his lips that would send
shimmering waves of desire through her.

I'm
losing my mind,
she thought, and turned away from
the presentations.

And a few moments later she was repeating those words
to her closest and most level-headed friend, Alison Hammond.

"Listen, Ally, how about dinner tonight, my treat?"

"Sure. I'd love to. But why your treat? Oh, that's right,
I forgot about that ill-deserved raise you got!"

Kate laughed. "Come on. I'm sure you'll be next. Your
department hasn't even come up for review."

"Mm. Well. We shall see. So what's the problem?
Kurt?"

"Oh, partly. I'll tell you later."

They made arrangements to meet at the Fifty-second
Street entrance to the store at five thirty and hung up, and
Kate went back to work feeling better able to concentrate.
She would simply put Ben
and
Kurt out of her mind until
dinner.

Later
on, at the dark and noisy Mexican restaurant
Alison
and Kate always went to when they wanted to talk
about
office politics, men, and other matters best not over
heard,
Kate told Alison all about Ben.

"The
worst thing about it," Kate said, scooping up a big
mound of
guacamole on a taco chip, "is that I have the
feeling
I'm doing it all over again. I just can't get him out
of my mind."
She sighed. "But that's exactly the way I felt
with Kurt.
And look at
that
relationship."

Alison
frowned, her usually pretty face shadowed with
tension.
"Hey, listen. I heard something today I think you
should know."

Kate
looked up. "What is it?"

"It's about
Kurt. It
is
definite, Kate. He was seeing
C
ynthia
Williston. I don't know if it's still going on,
but
—"

Kate waved
a hand. "Look. I feel horrible about it. But
I realized it
earlier today, when I was talking to him. It
jus
t all fell
into place—the evasiveness, the fact that he
didn
't want to
see me that much, but then at other times
he was
'suddenly
free.' Hell, he didn't even try to hide it.
Since we
work
together, he could hardly say he had business
meetings to go to."
She sighed. "What I mind most
is that i
t doesn't
bother me
—
because I don't even like
him a
nymore,
Ally. And that's what gets me. He isn't at
all
what I had thought
he was. So I've done it again."

AIison shook her
head. "Hey, listen. It isn't just you,
Kate
we could
all predict how our relationships would
come
out, we wouldn't give the time of day to half the men
g
o out with," She took
a sip of wine. "Look at me.

Divorced twice. Twice, and I'm thirty-two! At least you
don't have that to think about."

"In a way I'd rather that were true of me. I haven't even
gotten that close to commitment, because the men I
choose always end up being so wrong for me. Nothing like
marriage ever comes up."

Alison shrugged. "That may be, but you've got to look
ahead and quit letting the past drag you down. It sounds
corny, but it's true. And anyway, I don't see what's so
wrong with this Ben Austin. From what you've told me,
he sounds magnificent—smart, sincere, good-looking, secure, great job, obviously likes you, what else do you need?
Hell, I'll take him if you're not interested."

Kate widened her eyes, and Alison laughed. "See, you
really do want him. Maybe you're a little apprehensive
because you think he might be
right,
Kate—not because
you think he's another Mr. Wrong."

Kate smiled. "Come on. That just couldn't be true."

"We'll see about that. And listen—I know we both pig
out when we're preoccupied, but if you eat one more of
those tacos I'm going to break your legs. Get your mind
off this
Ben Austin,
off
these tacos, and on to something
else, okay?"

Kate laughed, and for the rest of the evening she tried
to relax and have a good time. But she couldn't shake her
doubts. Ben
had
seemed wonderful; he
had
seemed sincere. But as she looked back on it now, the whole encounter seemed too smooth. It was easy for a man like Ben to
overhear an obviously strained conversation between a
man and a woman and say, "I understand." It was easy
for him to look at her with gentle amber eyes and tell her
without words that he understood. But it could all have

been
an act, one to which she was especially vulnerable at
the
moment. And he had been noticeably close-mouthed
about
his own life. What did she even know about him?

And so, though she didn't voice her feelings to her
friend—
she just couldn't face another pep talk at the mo
ment—
she decided that, if nothing else, she would be
damned
careful around Ben Austin. There would have to
be a lot
more than desire in those golden eyes of his for h
er to be
interested in him.

The
next morning Kate's only thoughts of Ben Austin
concerned
the campaign he had developed. In all of her
musings of
the evening before, she had completely lost
sight of the
fact that she had a difficult task ahead of her: c
onvincing
Dick Dayton and Andrew Smithfield that her ch
oice of
Blake-Canfield was the best one. For while there wa
s now no
doubt in her mind that she was correct, she
was realistic
enough to know that Dayton and Smithfield
wouldn't
necessarily agree with her. They were both as c
onservative
as could be, refusing to face the fact that
Ivorsen and
Shaw would have to develop a new image if it
were going
to recapture even a fraction of its former marke
t. And
Blake-Canfield's campaign
—
with its emphasis
on youth
and fashion
—
was anything but conservative.