Almost Forever Read online

  “I’ve been reading about the possibility in the papers, but I had hoped it wouldn’t happen. So it’s final, then? When did it happen, and what does that have to do with you, anyway? They certainly aren’t going to get rid of Sam. He’s the brains behind Bronson Alloys. Aren’t you going to stay on as his secretary?”

  “The final agreement was signed yesterday.” Claire looked down at her hands, surprised to see that her fingers were laced tightly together. She made a conscious effort to relax. “Sam is going completely into research, so he won’t need a secretary any longer.”

  “That’s bad. I know how much you like him. But it’s also good that you’ve already had a job offer. What company is it?”

  “Spencer-Nyle.”

  Martine’s eyes widened. “The corporate headquarters! I’m impressed, and you must have impressed someone else, too!”

  “Not really.” Claire took a deep breath. This wasn’t getting any easier, so she decided to just get it said. “Max Benedict’s real name is Maxwell Conroy, and he’s a vice president with Spencer-Nyle.”

  For a full five seconds Martine merely stared at Claire with a stunned expression. Then hot color flooded her cheeks and she surged to her feet, her fists clenched. She seldom swore, but it was due to choice, not lack of vocabulary. She used every bit of that vocabulary now, pacing up and down and damning Max with every invective she could think of, and inventing new combinations when she ran out of the ones she already knew. She didn’t need to hear all the details to know that Claire had been hurt. Martine knew Claire well, and she was fiercely protective of her sister, as she was of everyone she loved.

  When Martine showed signs of running down, Claire interrupted quietly. “It gets more complicated. I gave him confidential information that he needed for Spencer-Nyle to engineer the takeover. That was why he was down here, and that was why he was showing so much interest in me. I blurted it all out like an idiot.”

  “I’ll tear his face off,” Martine raged, beginning to pace up and down again like a caged tigress. Then she stopped, and a peculiar expression came over her face. “But you’re going to Dallas with him?”

  “I’m going to Dallas for the job,” Claire said firmly. “It’s the only logical thing I can do. I’d have to be an even bigger idiot than I already am if I deliberately chose unemployment over a good job. Pride won’t keep the bills paid.”

  “Yes, it is the logical thing to do,” Martine echoed, and sat down. She still had that peculiar expression on her face, as if she were trying to think something through and it didn’t quite tally up. Then a slow smile began to crinkle the corners of her eyes. “He’s transferred you so you’ll be with him, that’s it, isn’t it? The man is in love with you!”

  “Not likely,” Claire said, her throat going tight. “Lies and betrayal aren’t very good indicators of love. I love him, but you already knew that, didn’t you? I shouldn’t love him, not now, but I can’t turn it on and off like a faucet. Just don’t ask me to believe that he ever saw anything in me except the means to an end.”

  “But when I think about it, he always watched you… Oh, I can’t describe it,” Martine mused. “As if he were so hungry for you, as if he wanted to absorb you. It gave me the shivers, watching him watch you. The good shivers, if you know what I mean.”

  Claire shook her head. “That isn’t likely, either. You’ve seen him,” she said, feeling her body tense up again. “He’s beautiful. It stops my breath to look at him! Why should he be interested in me, except for the information he needed?”

  “Why shouldn’t he? In my book he’d be a fool if he didn’t love you.”

  “Then a lot of men have been fools,” Claire pointed out wearily.

  “Fiddlesticks. You haven’t let them love you. You never let anyone get close enough to really know you, but Max is more intelligent than most men. Why wouldn’t he love you?” Martine asked passionately.

  It was hard for Claire to say, almost impossible. Her throat tightened. “Because I’m not beautiful, like you. That seems to be what men want.”

  “Of course you aren’t beautiful like me! You’re beautiful like yourself!” Martine came over to Claire and sat down on the deck chair with her, her lovely face unusually serious. “I’m flamboyant, but that isn’t your style at all. Do you know what Steve once said to me? He said that he wished I were more like you, that I would think before I leaped. I punched him, of course, and asked what else he likes about you. He said that he likes your big dark eyes—he called them ‘bedroom eyes’—and I was about ready to do more than punch him! Blue-eyed blondes like me are a dime a dozen, but how many brown-eyed blondes are there? I used to die with envy, because you only had to turn those dark eyes on a man and he was ready to melt at your feet, but you never seemed to know that, and eventually he gave up.” Suddenly Martine caught her breath, her eyes widening. “Max didn’t give up, did he?”

  Claire was staring at her sister, unable to believe that beautiful Martine had ever found anything about her to be jealous of. Distracted, she said, “Max doesn’t know those two words are ever used together.” Then she realized what she had just admitted, and she flushed. She wasn’t used to talking so frankly to anyone, even her sister, but she was learning some things about herself that she’d never suspected before. Was it true that she held people away from her, that she didn’t let them get close enough to care? She hadn’t looked at it from that angle before; she had thought that she was keeping a distance between herself and other people so she wouldn’t care, without considering the person who was being held at arm’s length.

  “Max won’t leave me alone. He insists that it isn’t over. He was called back to Dallas,” she explained steadily. “By the time he returned to Houston, I had already found out his real name and what he was doing here. He called, but I refused to go out with him again. So now I’ve been transferred to Dallas.”

  “To his own territory. Smart move,” Martine commented.

  “Yes. I know all that. I know how he reacts to challenges, and that’s all I am to him. How many women do you suppose have ever refused him?”

  Martine thought, then admitted ruefully, “You probably stand alone.”

  “Yes. But I have to have a job, so I’m going.” Even as she said the words, Claire wondered if there had ever been anything else she could have done. “What would you do in my place?”

  “I’d go,” Martine admitted, and laughed. “We must be more alike than you think. I know I’d never let him think that he’d made me run!”

  “Exactly.” Claire’s dark eyes turned almost black. “He makes me so angry I could spit!”

  Martine raised a militant fist. “Give him hell, honey!” Seeing the anger in Claire’s face made Martine want to dance around the yard. Too often Claire held her emotions in, hiding her vulnerabilities from the rest of the world. Even when she had lost her baby, Claire had been pale and quiet. Only Max had ever jostled her out of her composure. Claire might not think that Max cared for her at all, but Martine had seen Max watching her sister, and thought Claire was seriously underestimating the strength of his attraction to her. There was no doubt that he loved a challenge—he had that sort of fire in his eyes, that self-confident arrogance. But Claire didn’t realize that she was an ongoing challenge, with her silences and perceptions, and the depths of her personality. If Martine read him correctly, Max would be fascinated by the complexity of Claire’s character. And, damn him, if he hurt Claire again, he’d have to answer to Martine for it!

  Claire felt as if she had made a momentous decision, but she was calm, even though the thought of changing her life so completely was a wrenching one. She had lived in her quiet, cozy apartment for five years, and it hurt to think of leaving, yet she knew that she had made the only logical choice. It was just that she preferred changes to come slowly, so she could adjust to them, rather than in a confusing rush.

  She sat in silence that night, looking around and trying to accustom herself to the idea of a new apartment