Tender Triumph Read online

  No real or imagined flaw in her face, figure, pos­ture or personality escaped his notice or went unre­marked. "Pleated skirts make your hips look even broader," he observed impersonally. Katie protest­ed that she didn't have broad hips, but she enrolled in an exercise class just to be sure. "If you cut your hair short, your chin wouldn't seem so prominent." Katie protested that her chin wasn't prominent, but she had her hair cut. "If you tightened up your knees, your rear end wouldn't wiggle so much when you walk." Katie tightened up her knees and won­dered if she was still "wiggling."

  His eyes were never still, they followed her every­where until Katie became so self-conscious she could hardly cross the room without bumping into a table or banging into a chair. That too, did not escape his notice. Neither did the meal she burned, nor the clothes she forgot to take to the cleaners, nor the dust she overlooked on the bookshelf. "Some women can handle a career and run a house," David observed one night while she was polishing furni­ture. "Obviously you aren't one of them. You're going to have to give up your job."

  Looking back, Katie could not believe how easily he had manipulated her. For two weeks, David "worked late at the office." When he was home, he shut her out completely. When he spoke to her at all, it was with cold ridicule or polite sarcasm. Katie tried repeatedly to patch their quarrel in every way she could think of, but David viewed her obvious ef­forts with freezing contempt. In two short weeks, he managed to reduce her to a piteous bundle of teary tension, and had her believing that she was clumsy, stupid and inept. But she had been only twenty-one then, and fresh out of college, while David was nine years older, very sophisticated and authoritative.

  The thought of giving up her job broke her con­trol. "But I love my job," she had said, tears streak­ing down her cheeks.

  "I thought you 'loved' your husband," David had retorted coldly. He looked at her hands fever­ishly polishing the table. "I'm very fond of that Steuben bowl," he drawled insolently. "Move it, before you knock it over."

  "I'm not going to knock it over," Katie burst out, rounding on him in a tearful fury and knocking the valuable glass bowl off the table. It hit the floor with a sickening crash and broke. Katie was as broken as the bowl. She flung herself into David's arms and burst into racking sobs. "I love you, David—I don't know what's wrong with me, lately. I'm so sorry. I'll give up my job, and I'll—"

  David was avenged. All was forgiven. He patted her consolingly, told her that as long as she loved him that was all that mattered, and of course she didn't have to give up her job. The sun beamed down upon her marriage again, and David was his thoughtful, considerate, charming self once more.

  Four months later, Katie left her office early intending to surprise David with a special dinner to celebrate their six-month anniversary. She surprised him. He was in bed with the wife of his law firm's senior partner, leaning back against the headboard casually smoking a cigarette, with the naked woman cradled in his free arm. Deadly calm washed over Katie, even though her stomach was twisting. "Since you've obviously finished," she said quietly in the doorway, "I'd appreciate it if you'd get out of here. Both of you."

  She walked into the kitchen in a daze, took mush­rooms out of the grocery bag and began slicing them for dinner. She sliced her finger twice without notic­ing the blood. Minutes later, David's low, savage voice hissed behind her, "You little bitch, before tonight is over you're going to learn some manners. Sylvia Conners' husband happens to be my boss. Now get out there and apologize to her."

  "Go to hell," Katie said in a voice strangled with pain and humiliation.

  His hands dug viciously into her hair, snapping her head back. "I'm warning you, do as I say or it will only go harder on you when she leaves."

  Tears of tormented anguish filled Katie's eyes, but she met his glittering gaze without flinching. "No."

  David let go of her and strolled into the living room. "Sylvia," she heard him say, "Katie is sorry that she upset you, and she'll apologize for her rude­ness tomorrow. Come on, I'll walk you down to your car."

  When they left the apartment, Katie walked woodenly into the bedroom she had shared with David and pulled her suitcases out of the closet. She was mechanically opening drawers and removing her clothing when she heard him return.

  "You know, darling," David said in a soft, silky voice from the doorway, "four months ago, I thought you learned never to make me angry. I tried to teach you the easy way, but evidently it didn't work. I'm afraid this lesson will have to be a little more memorable."

  Katie looked up from her mindless packing and saw him calmly unbuckling his belt and sliding it out of its loops. Even her vocal cords froze with stark ter­ror. "If you dare to touch me," she said in a suf­focated voice, "I'll have you arrested for assault."

  David stalked her slowly across the bedroom, watching with malicious enjoyment as Katie backed away. "No you won't. You're going to cry very hard, and say you're sorry, and tell me that you love me."

  He was right. Thirty minutes later, Katie was still screaming "I love you" into the pillow when the apartment door closed behind him.

  She had no idea how much time passed before she dragged herself off the bed, pulled a coat on, picked up her purse and left the apartment. She had no re­collection of driving to her parents' house that night, nor did she ever return to the apartment.

  David called her day and night, alternately trying to cajole and threaten her into coming back. He was deeply sorry; he had been under tremendous tension at the office with his case load; it would never hap­pen again.

  The next time she saw him she was with her lawyer in divorce court.

  Katie glanced up as Ramon turned into a narrow dirt driveway. Straight ahead in the distance she could see light glowing against the hillside. Gabriella's house, she assumed. She looked around at the surrounding hills, which were sprinkled with the twinkling lights from the other houses, some high, some low, some much farther away than others. It made the hills seem welcoming, like a safe harbor on a dark night. She tried to enjoy the sight, to concen­trate on the present and the future, but the past refused to let go of her. It clutched at her, warning her....

  David Caldwell had not completely deceived her; she had let herself be deceived. Even at a naive, virginal twenty-one, she had sensed that he was not entirely the charming man he seemed to be. Subcon­sciously she had registered the controlled rage in his eyes when a waiter didn't scurry fast enough in a res­taurant; she had seen the clenching of his hands on the steering wheel when another driver didn't move out of his way; she had even seen the veiled specula­tion in his eyes when he looked at another woman. She had suspected that he was not the man he wanted her to believe he was, but she had been in love and she had married him anyway.

  Now she was on the verge of marrying Ramon, and she couldn't shake the creeping suspicion that he wasn't the man he wanted her to believe he was, either. He was like a puzzle whose pieces didn't quite fit together. And he seemed so hesitant, so uninformative when she asked questions about him and his past. If he had nothing to hide, why was he so reluctant to talk about himself?

  That brought a storm of argument from Katie's heart. Just because Ramon didn't like to talk about himself didn't necessarily mean that he was conceal­ing some sinister personality trait from her. David had loved talking about himself, so in that respect the two men were very different.

  They were very different in every respect, Katie told herself firmly. Or were they?

  She just needed some time to adjust to the idea of marrying again, she decided. Everything had hap­pened so fast that she was panicking. In the next two weeks her irrational fear would leave her. Or would it?

  Gabriella's house was clearly in sight when Ramon abruptly stepped in front of her, blocking her path. "Why?" he demanded in a terse, frustrat­ed voice. "Why are you so frightened?"

  "I—I'm not," Katie denied, startled.

  "Yes," he said harshly, "You are."

  Katie stared up at his moonlit face. Despit