White Satin (19 page)

“So we’re back to square one,” he said coolly. “I’m being shown the door. You know, of course, that I’m not going to accept that. I told you that from now on you were going to belong to me. Nothing you’ve said has changed that.” His lips twisted in a bitter smile. “I’m afraid I don’t have your powers of adaptability. I can’t stop loving you because it hurts me or is best for me. It just goes on.” He abruptly stepped forward, his hands grasping her shoulders. “And I think it’s going to go on for you too. Even if you can stop caring for me, you’re going to want me.” He suddenly pulled her close to the warmth of his body and smiled mockingly as he saw the shiver of response that went through her. “See? That insurance I took out is paying dividends. You’re going to lie awake at night and remember all the things we did together, and you’re going to want to do them again.” His
hand dropped to encircle her breast, lifting and toying with its soft weight through the cashmere sweater. “You’re going to ache and throb until I’m back beside you in that bed.” His eyes held hers with mesmerizing intensity. “I’d be willing to wager you’ve already been doing that—just as I have, Dany.” The color flooded her cheeks and there was a trace of a bittersweet satisfaction in his smile. “I thought so.”

“I’ll get over it,” she said desperately.

He shook his head. “No, you won’t. For the simple reason that I’m not going to let you. Whenever you turn around, I’ll be there reminding you. I’m going to be the shadow behind you and the nemesis in front of you. You’ll be back in my bed within a month.”

“No,” she whispered. “I’m stronger than that.”

“In a battle against anyone else perhaps,” he said, his silver-green eyes glacier-cold. His hand squeezed her breast gently and she felt liquid fire begin to smolder in the pit of her stomach. “I think you’ll find it an entirely different matter when it comes to fighting yourself.” His hands fell away
from her and he stepped back. “It’s too late to back away from me now, Dany. I’ll just come after you. For the rest of your life I’ll be either beside you or behind you. Take your pick.” He picked up his coat from the couch and draped it over his arm. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to harass you while we’re in Calgary. I won’t even try to see you until the competition is over.” He turned toward the door. “I want all your concentration on your work. I can wait. I’ve become very good at that over the years.”

“It won’t do you any good,” Dany said despairingly.

“I think it will.” He turned at the door, and for a moment his eyes were no longer cool but naked and raw with pain. “And you’re wrong. If you held out your hand to save me from a precipice, I’d take it in a minute. I wouldn’t let even death separate us now.”

The competitor from East Germany raised her leg in a camel spin with a precise grace that was a miracle of strength and coordination. “She’s almost
swanlike,” Dany whispered to Beau from where they stood on the sidelines observing Nora Schmidt’s short program. “And she’s very strong too. I noticed that in Brussels last year when she placed third in the Worlds. Her long program should be even better than her short.”

“She’s not so great,” Marta sniffed from beside her. “Her legs are too long. She looks like a giraffe.”

“You said Margie Brandon looked like a cow on ice,” Dany said affectionately. “We’re rapidly acquiring a menagerie.”

“Well, I was right,” Marta said with satisfaction. “You noticed that Brandon only placed fourteenth in the compulsories.”

“Schmidt’s program’s been practically faultless,” Beau said. His eyes were narrowed on the dark-haired skater as she ended the program with a beautifully executed spin. “That classical style combined with her technical precision will almost certainly keep her in first. I was hoping she’d screw up so you’d have a chance of taking over first right away. It would take a hell of a lot of pressure off you.”

Dany shrugged. “We’re in no worse shape than we thought we’d be.” She made a wry face. “That is, we won’t be if
I
don’t screw up.” She straightened the sky-blue chiffon of her costume. “I’m up next, aren’t I?”

“Right after Schmidt’s second set of scores come up,” Beau drawled. “And you won’t screw up. You and Scarlett are both survivors, remember?”

“How could I forget?” she said lightly, then impulsively asked the question she’d been avoiding thinking about all afternoon. “Is Anthony here, Beau?”

He didn’t answer for a moment. “He’s here,” he finally said quietly. “He decided not to come back to the dressing room. He’s in a front row box across the arena. Is it going to bother you to know that?”

“No, it won’t bother me,” she said with a reassuring smile. She carefully kept her gaze from searching the arena. She didn’t want to know exactly where Anthony was, but she’d been telling the truth when she’d said Anthony’s presence didn’t disturb her. Even if all other aspects of their
relationship had changed, she knew that one hadn’t. She knew he’d be giving her silent support, willing her to succeed, willing her to be all she could be. She felt her spirits lift just at the thought. “It can only help.”

She heard the burst of applause from the audience as the East German girl’s second set of scores came up. “She’s tied up first, sugar,” Beau said as he gave her a little push onto the ice. “Now, go bring home second.”

Her short program had been planned as spirited, vigorous, and sparkling with a virtual fireworks display of technical skill and intricate footwork. She could feel the audience with her all the way as she began to have fun with it. Not for her the stately classics. She was more the mischievous little girl showing off for the grown-ups. Her piquant face was alive with a joie de vivre as lively as the performance itself as the audience began to clap with the tempo of the music. She was still wishing it could go on forever when the final, beautifully blurred sit-spin came much too soon.

She stood in the middle of the rink, a little breathless, her cheeks flushed and her dark eyes shining as she raised her hand in acknowledgement of the storm of applause. Now, wrapped in the sweetness of the moment, she could afford to search the ringside boxes for Anthony.

There he was, sitting quietly, not applauding as the rest of the crowd was doing. But, oh, his face! Pride, love, and an odd sadness combined with an intensity that took her breath away and caused an aching tenderness to replace the euphoria she’d been feeling. She looked away hurriedly and skated back to where Beau and Marta were waiting.

Beau gave her a light kiss on the end of her nose. “You were as smooth as a mint julep on a hot summer day.” His gaze was fixed on the scoreboard across the rink. “There are the technical marks: all good except for East Germany. He gave you a five point five.” His lips tightened. “He won’t dare do that on the artistic. The bias would be too obvious.”

“Besides, the crowd would lynch him,” Marta said grimly. “And I’ll be the one yanking the rope.”

Dany held Beau’s arm for balance as she put on her blade guards, her eyes fixed anxiously on the board. “Will it be enough, Beau?” She moistened her lips nervously. “That five point five is going to drag the composite score down so much.”

Beau didn’t answer, his tense gaze on the board.

Then the scores began to flicker on one by one, and the crowd roared its approval. 5.8, 5.9, 5.9, 5.9 …

Beau picked her up and whirled her in an exuberant circle. “You did it! Nothing lower than a five point eight except East Germany, and even that bastard gave you a five point seven! That makes you a shoo-in for the number two spot when you go into the long program. We’re halfway home!”

Dany felt ten feet tall. No, fifty feet tall, and skating on clouds instead of ice as Beau let her down and Marta launched herself at her and enfolded her in an ecstatic bear hug. She’d done it! The crowd was applauding wildly, and Beau and Marta were hugging and congratulating her with
all the affection and love in the world. Everything was wonderful!

She wasn’t sure if it was by accident or design that her gaze alighted on Anthony’s box across the arena. Lord, he looked so alone. She was surrounded by more love and adulation than ever before in her life, and he should have been sharing it. It was wrong to have him sitting half an arena away, half a world away, in that chilly isolation. She impulsively started to speak, to ask Beau to go after him and bring him into their warm circle.

Then she saw him rise gracefully to his feet and leave the box. His back was straight and indomitable and the set of his shoulders almost arrogantly proud. In less than a minute she lost sight of him in the crowd.

“Dany?” Beau’s eyes glowed softly with sympathy. “Are you okay?”

Why was she feeling this crushing disappointment? Anthony wouldn’t have wanted to share their heady triumph anyway. Nothing had changed since their scene in the hotel suite the day before yesterday.

“Of course I am,” she said with a determined
smile. “And I’ll be even better three days from now when I go for the gold.” She linked her arms through Beau’s and Marta’s. “Come on, I’ve got that TV interview to get through, and then we’re going to celebrate.”

“How did you sleep last night?” Beau asked as he dropped down in his favorite position, straddling the straight-backed chair across from the bench where she was sitting and resting his arms on the back. “Any nerves?”

She shook her head. “A few, but nothing major.” She put her skates in the bag, zipped it up, and set it on the dressing-room bench beside her. “I slept very well from ten o’clock on.”

“And the workout went smooth as glass this morning.” He frowned. “Almost too well. You know what they say about a bad dress rehearsal making a hit on opening night. I don’t want you
making your mistakes tonight in the performance.” Then his face cleared and he shook his head ruefully. “Just listen to me!
I’m
the one who has the nerves.”

Her dark eyes were twinkling. “If it will make you feel any better, I’ll go back on the ice and try to fall down a couple of times.”

“Don’t you dare. With my luck you’d probably break something and I’d be accused of ruining your brilliant career.”

Her face softened. “I’d never do that. You’ve worked like a demon to get me to this point. The only reason I have a chance at that brilliant career is because of all the support you’ve given me over the years. Marta was right when she said we make a great team.” She leaned forward to squeeze his arm. “I guess after tonight that team will just have to concentrate on new fields to conquer.”

He covered her hand with his own. “We did make a good team.” He paused and seemed to hesitate. “I didn’t mean to go into this until after the competition, but I think you should know I won’t be around after next week.” At her startled exclamation he went on quickly. “You won’t need me.
No matter how tonight goes, you’ll have all the ice shows clamoring for you. You have star quality, Dany.”

“I’ll always need you.” First Anthony and now Beau, she thought. She was going to lose them both. “We’re a team.”

He shrugged restlessly. “Well, the truth is, I’ve always been a loner. I’ve never pulled well in harness.” He smiled. “I consider it something of a miracle to have made it this long without kicking over the traces.” His hand tightened on hers. “I told you once I wasn’t the steady, upright paragon you thought me.”

“But you are,” she protested. “You’ve always been—”

“And sometimes it’s almost driven me crazy,” he interrupted. For a moment she saw once again that wild golden gleam in the depths of his eyes. “I’m not a responsible heavyweight like Anthony. I wouldn’t want to be. I
like
to raise hell and do what I damn well please.”

“You’ve been exceptionally responsible for the past six years.”

“I owed a debt,” he said simply. “The thing
Anthony wanted most in the world was the gold for you. I knew I couldn’t give him anything else. It had to be the gold.”

“So you gave him six years of your life. In a job you didn’t want to do.” She was gazing at him in wonder. “That’s unbelievable, Beau. It’s like something from the Old Testament.”

“It wasn’t all that rough,” he said. “I found playing big brother to a fourteen-year-old easier than I thought.” He reached out to touch the tip of her nose teasingly in the gesture she knew so well. “Because I grew to like and admire that teenager very much. Before I took on this job, the only family I’d ever known was a battery of lawyers and executors. In a way you, Marta, and Anthony have been my family.”

“But not a close-enough tie to keep you here,” Dany said sadly.

“Well, every family has its black sheep,” he said with a lopsided grin. “You haven’t seen the last of me. Every now and then, like any prodigal, I’ll be dropping in for my dinner of fatted calf.”

“You’ll get it,” she said huskily. “Anytime,
Beau.” She cleared her throat. “What are you going to do now? Go back to the ice show?”

He shook his head. “I was ready to hang up my skates seven years ago when I left the clinic. I’ve never cared enough about anything to stick to it for an indefinite period. It was fun for a while, and I was young enough to enjoy all the show-biz glamor and groupies throwing themselves into my bed.” His eyes twinkled mischievously. “I particularly enjoyed that fringe benefit.”