Her eyebrows arched. “Steak?”
“Steak. I feel like chewing something.”
“Ouch. Bad day?” she murmured.
“Vicious!” He shrugged. “By the way, Ahmed said that he’d like to join us, if you don’t mind.”
“Certainly not!” she said, smiling. “I like him.”
“So do I. But don’t get too attached to him,” he cautioned. “There are some things going on that you don’t know about, that you’re safer not knowing about. But Ahmed isn’t quite what he seems.”
“Really?” She was intrigued. “Tell me more.”
“You’ll have to take my word for it,” he said. “I’m not risking any more scathing comments from the boss. He was out for blood today. One of the secretaries threw a desk lamp at him and walked out of the building without severance pay!”
Meg’s eyebrows arched. “Steven’s secretary?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” He chuckled. “Everybody else ran for cover. Not Daphne. I suppose she’d known him for so long that she can handle him.”
Meg’s heart stopped beating. “Daphne—the Daphne he was sleeping with when he and I got engaged?”
David’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think they were that intimate, and certainly not after he asked you to marry him. But, yes, they’ve known each other for years.”
“I see.”
“She was the reason you argued with him. The reason you left, as I remember.”
She took a deep breath. “Part of it,” she replied, correcting him. She forced a smile. “Actually she did a good turn. I’d never have had the opportunity to continue my training in New York if I’d married Steven, would I?”
“You haven’t let a man near you since you left Wichita,” David said sagely. “And don’t tell me it’s due to lack of time for a social life.”
She lifted her chin. “Maybe Steve’s an impossible act to follow,” she said with an enigmatic smile. “Or maybe he taught me a bitter lesson about male loyalty.”
“Steven’s not what he seems,” he said suddenly. “He’s got a soft center, despite all that turmoil he creates. He was deeply hurt when you left. I don’t think he ever got over you, Meg.”
“His pride didn’t, he even admitted it,” she agreed. “But he never loved me. If he had, how could he have gone to Daphne?”
“Men do strange things when they feel threatened.”
“I never threatened him,” she muttered.
“No?” He stuck his hands into his pockets and studied her averted face. “Meg, in all the years we’ve known the Rykers, Steve never took a woman around for more than two weeks. He avoided any talk of involvement or marriage. Then he took you out one time and started talking about engagement rings.”
“I was a novelty.” She bit off the words.
“You were, indeed. You melted right through that wall of ice around him and made him laugh, made him young. Meg, if you’d ever really looked at him, you’d have seen how much he changed when he was with you. Steven Ryker would have thrown himself under a bus if you’d asked him to. He would have done anything for you. Anything,” he added quietly. “His father didn’t want Steven to marry you because he thought Steve was besotted enough to side with you in a proxy fight.” He smiled at her shocked expression. “Don’t you see that everyone was manipulating you for their own gain? You and Steven never had a chance, Meg. You fell right into line and did exactly what you were meant to do. And the one who really paid the price was poor old Steven, in love for the first time in his life.”
“He didn’t love me,” she choked.
“That’s true. He worshiped you. He couldn’t take his eyes off you. Everything he did for that one long month you were engaged was designed solely to please you, every thought he had was for your comfort, your happiness.” He shook his head. “You were too young to realize it, weren’t you?”
She felt as if her legs wouldn’t hold her. She sat down, heavily. “He never said a word.”
“What could he have said? He isn’t the type to beg. You left. He assumed you considered him expendable. He got drunk. Roaring drunk. He stayed that way for three days. Then he went back to work with a vengeance and started making money hand over fist. That’s when the women started showing up, one after another. They numbed the ache, but he was still hurting. There was nothing anyone could do for him, except watch him suffer and pretend not to notice that he flinched whenever your name was mentioned.”
She covered her face with her hands.
He laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Don’t torture yourself. He did, finally, get over you, Meg. It took him a year and when he got through it, he was a better man. But he’s not the same man. He’s lost and gained something in the process. It’s hardened him to emotion.”
“I was an idiot,” she said heavily, pushing back her loosened hair. “I loved him so much, but I was afraid of him. He seemed so distant sometimes, as if he couldn’t bear to talk to me about anything personal.”
“You were the same way,” he prompted.
She smiled wistfully. “Of course I was. I was hopelessly repressed and introverted, and I couldn’t believe that a man who was such a man wanted to marry me. I stood in awe of him then. I still do, a little. But now I understand him so much better…now that it’s too late.”
“Are you sure that it is?”
She thought about the night before, about his exquisite ardor and then the pain and grief of hearing him proposition her. She nodded slowly. “Yes, David,” she said, lifting pain-filled blue eyes to his. “I’m afraid so.”
“I’m sorry.”
She got to her feet. “Don’t they say that things always work out for the best?” She smoothed her skirt. “Where are we going to eat?”
“Castello’s. And I’m sorry to have to tell you that so is Steve.”
She hated the thought of facing him, but she was no coward. She only shrugged fatalistically. “I’ll get dressed, then.”
He told her what time they needed to leave and went off to make a last-minute phone call.
Meg went upstairs. “I think I’ll wear something red,” she murmured angrily to herself. “With a V-neck, cut to the ankles in front, and with slits up both sides…”
She didn’t have anything quite that revealing, but the red dress she pulled out of its neat wrapper had spaghetti straps and fringe. It was close-fitting, seductive. She left her blond hair down around her shoulders and used much more makeup than she normally did. She had some jewelry left over from the old days, with diamonds. She got it out of the safe and wore it, too. The song about going out in a blaze of glory revolved in her mind. She was going to give Steven Ryker hell.
As David had said, he was, indeed, in the restaurant. But he wasn’t alone. And Meg’s poor heart took a dive when she saw who was with him: a slinky, sultry platinum blonde with a smooth tan, wearing a black dress that probably cost twice what Meg’s had. It was Daphne, of course, draped against Steve’s arm as if she were an expensive piece of lint. Meg forced a brilliant smile as Ahmed rose from the table, in a distinguished dark suit, and smiled with pure appreciation as she and David approached.
“Mademoiselle prompts me to indiscretion,” he said, taking her hand and bowing over it before he kissed the knuckles in a very continental way. “I will bite my tongue and subdue the words that tease my mouth.”