Until You (39 page)

If it had been O'Neil watching over her, she'd never have got away with it. He'd have stuck like glue, the way he had in Paris. If she'd tried to evade him, he'd have shouldered his way into her apartment, demanded to know what in hell she thought she was doing and after they'd yelled at each other maybe, just maybe, he'd have gathered her into his arms and kissed her until nothing mattered but the taste and the feel of him, though why she should even think such a thing was beyond her comprehension.

Miranda gave herself a little shake. This was what came of standing around and being bored out of your mind. You got maudlin and stupid, you began to think about things that had no meaning. Enough, she thought, and she turned to the man standing beside her, gave him a dazzling smile, and interrupted him in midsentence.

"I'm sure Art for the Homeless is a wonderful cause," she said earnestly, "and I'm very grateful to you for explaining it to me."

"You're more than welcome, Miss Beckman." He cleared his throat and edged closer. "Perhaps you'd like to have a late supper with me. I'd love to fill you in on some of our future plans."

"Another time," Miranda said, her smile even more brilliant. "Unfortunately, it's quite late."

"Late?" His gaze shot to the Rolex on his pale, hairless wrist. "But it's barely nine-thirty."

"Ah, but I have to face the cameras in the morning. You wouldn't want me to look anything less than my best, would you?"

She patted his arm before he could come up with an answer and made her way to the table where she'd left the pale grey suede coat that matched her dress.

Eva caught up to her as she was halfway to the door.

"The party's not over," she said coldly.

"I know, but I have an early shoot tomorrow."

"This is an important event. Papillon is one of the sponsors and Chrysalis should be properly represented."

"Don't worry, Mother. I shook all the right hands and smiled at all the right people."

Eva's lips thinned with contempt. "I suppose you have a late date."

"That's none of your business."

"Nothing is different," Eva said in a low, razor-sharp voice. "You still have no sense of morality or obligation."

"Isn't it nice to know some things never change?" Miranda said, her smile unwavering. "Good night, Mother."

* * *

It was cool out but not unpleasantly so. She could even smell the green fragrance of spring on the sighing breath of a light breeze. The only thing that spoiled the evening was a quick glimpse of Bob Breverman, lurking just a few yards past the hotel.

The doorman started to whistle for a cab but Miranda waved it away. It was only a short walk to the apartment she was renting and besides, she needed the exercise. Paris was a city of walkers; New York was a place where you took a taxi, even if you were only going half a dozen blocks. Maybe she'd join a gym. Or take up running. Something. Anything. She didn't want to put on weight.

Didn't want time to hang heavy on her hands because when it did, she ended up thinking.

About Conor and what he'd done to her, taking away her friends, her home, all the things that had been her life.

About how it had been between them, that night. That one fantastic night, when almost anything had seemed possible.

That awful night, when she'd come painfully close to making a complete fool of herself.

A horn blared and she almost jumped out of her skin as a taxi squealed to a halt only a couple of feet away. The driver leaned out his window, cursing her in some language she'd never heard before. Other horns blared as she zigzagged through the traffic.

Terrific. If she wasn't careful, she'd end up not on the society pages tomorrow or even on the gossip pages, but as a front page headline.

Famous Model Finds Fate on Fifth.

Eva would probably love the publicity.

Miranda stepped up on the curb and made her way to the entrance to her apartment building. At the last second, she came to a dead stop. Call-Me-Bob Breverman was right on schedule, following her so closely that he almost crashed into her as she turned and confronted him.

"Good evening, Mr. Breverman," she said politely. "Lovely night for walking, isn't it?"

Breverman flushed. "This is a foolish game, Miss Beckman."

"Perhaps. But it's my game and I enjoy playing it. You can go home and get some rest, Mr. Breverman. I promise, I'm not going out anymore tonight. I'll be locked up, safe and snug, until eight tomorrow morning."

One last smile and then she walked briskly to the entrance.

The doorman touched his cap in greeting, the door swung open, and Miranda stepped inside the lobby.

* * *

Conor, watching from the shadows, cursed under his breath.

He waited until the door closed after her. Then he strolled across the street to Bob Breverman's side.

"She made you," he said conversationally.

Breverman's flush deepened. "Yeah, but she almost always does."

Conor nodded and dug his hands deeper into the pockets of his leather flight jacket.

"She's a winner, all right."

"She's a bitch," Breverman said, "and she's all yours, O'Neil."

Conor watched as Breverman strode away. No, he thought, and his gut tightened, she isn't mine.

But God, how he wished she were.

Chapter 14

Miranda had no idea he was watching her.

Conor dogged her footsteps for the rest of the week but he might as well have been invisible.

She never caught a glimpse of him. He was certain of that although a couple of times she'd hesitated as she stepped out the door in the morning, her head lifted, her nostrils delicately flaring. It made him remember a filly he'd seen once, during a stint in Saudi Arabia, and the way she'd come into the stable, tossing her head and seeking the scent of the stallion waiting for her.

It was a fanciful, pointless thought and he'd have laughed at it and at himself if he'd had the time, but he was too busy making sure he kept out of the way so Miranda didn't spot him.

He knew she was wondering what had happened to Bob Breverman. He could tell by the way she glanced around, as if she were a kid playing a game of hide-and-seek. That pissed him off. He wanted to step out of the shadows, grab her and say,
Dammit, haven't you figured out that this isn't a game an amateur stands a chance of winning?

Breverman had given him a rundown on her schedule. Out the door at eight; coffee, one slice of dry wheat toast and half a grapefruit at a little place a couple of blocks over, then a brisk walk to the office or a taxi ride to wherever the cameras might be filming that day. She had lunch—yogurt, fruit and a small bottle of Perrier—on the set, if she was being photographed. If she was in the office Eva had assigned her at Papillon, she ate on a bench in the atrium of a skyscraper a couple of blocks away. She never lunched at Papillon itself, where there was an executive dining room.

Eva took that as an indication of her daughter's intransigent behavior.

"My daughter prefers to go her own way," she'd said with a chill smile when Conor paid her a quick visit, told her not to mention his presence in the city to Miranda, and asked her to provide him with Miranda's weekly schedule in advance. "Following her when she's on her own time should prove interesting, Mr. O'Neil. Heaven only knows where she goes or what she does, even on her lunch hour."

Or who she does it with.
The unspoken words had seemed to hang in the air between them.

Conor wondered what Eva would say if he told her that so far, Miranda's lunchtime assignations were with a bunch of cooing pigeons that had already figured out she was an easy mark. But he didn't answer; he just kept quiet and nodded wisely, as if he were taking it all in.

In the afternoons, Miranda invariably went out to promote Papillon's new cosmetic line. Eva's people had arranged appearances for her all over Manhattan and in half a dozen other major markets. She taxied to Bloomingdale's and Barney's; she was greeted with glitzy excitement at Saks, Henri Bendel's and the other Fifth Avenue stores.

A week after Conor took over, she began going out of town to tout Chrysalis. She flew to Dallas and Miami, Phoenix and San Francisco; Conor flew with her, in the same plane, folding his long legs into his coach class seat because there was no way he could sit in business class, or first, without her seeing him.

She flew to Los Angeles, too, and scooted off to a handsome house high in the hills for a couple of hours to visit with Jean-Phillipe Moreau. The house was damn near all windows, which made Conor nervous, but at least it gave him an easy view of things, enough to see the easy familiarity between Moreau and Harlan Williams, and to know that you couldn't call the kisses and hugs Miranda shared with the Frenchman anything but brotherly.

In the evenings, she went out. To the clubs, as Thurston had said, and always with a group of people, the women fashion-model gorgeous, the men successful-looking and handsome. She wore outrageous outfits, body-hugging dresses that came to mid-thigh, with her hair hanging loose down her back and a smile he knew was phony painted across her face, and she shimmered like heat-lightning on the dance floor. Watching her turned his body hard and his temper mean; it was all he could do sometimes to keep from marching onto the floor, tossing her over his shoulder and carrying her off.

She had the same effect on every other man who watched her and he could tell that she knew it. She flirted like crazy, damn her, batted her lashes and pouted and purred until half the guys in the place were panting to have her. And then she went home.

Alone.

Conor couldn't figure it out. He'd seen her with Moreau in L.A.; he knew that what Thurston had said about the man's sexuality was true. So, if she wasn't being faithful to the Frenchman, why was she sleeping by herself?

And through it all, she never had a clue that he was watching. Breverman, the poor sap, had slunk around dressed like a G-12 clerk. Conor knew better. He hadn't given a damn about blending into the background in Paris. If anything, he'd worn his Harris tweed jackets, his cords and chinos and sweaters as a not terribly original way of distancing himself from the smarmy fashion scene, but here he knew he had to fade into the woodwork.

He'd moved into a sublet two blocks from Miranda's place, courtesy of his expense account, and the only things he hung in the closet were his Burberry and his tux. Everything else was Manhattan casual: a couple of pair of snug, faded Levi 501's, his ancient denim jacket that had once been a rite of passage, a leather flight jacket he'd cherished, for more than a decade. He took himself over to Ralph Lauren's, bought some cashmere sweaters, a couple of sports jackets, pants and a handful of shirts. Then he thought, what-the-hell, ducked into a nearby shop and picked up a pair of leather boots, although he spent half an hour scuffing the boots with sandpaper so he wouldn't come off looking like some midnight cowboy and end up having to defend his honor. A pair of dark shades, and that was it.

He was in business.

Now he could bide his time, hang back and wait. Sooner or later, something was bound to happen. It was just that when something finally did, it wasn't what he'd expected.

Friday afternoon, Miranda was heading for her apartment. She was walking, taking her time, looking into shop windows, when she suddenly veered into a place called The Milepost. Conor tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans, sauntered to the window, and looked in.

The shop was crammed with running gear. Sneakers, shorts, tops, warm-up suits—a sea of Spandex flowed in all directions. He could see Miranda making her way down one aisle and up the other, taking stuff from the racks and finally toting it to the counter.

Had she taken up running? Had she joined a gym? One or the other seemed likely, but he had no idea which it was.

He knew she got a late start on Friday nights. He had plenty of time to go home, dress for an evening of club-hopping, then return and stake the place out.

Logic told him that, but instinct told him something else.

He trotted the couple of blocks to his apartment but instead of putting on one of his Polo jackets, he pulled on a pair of sweats, added his old Columbia sweatshirt with the hole in the sleeve, and laced up his Adidas. A little past six, he took up station outside Miranda's apartment building.