Jennifer Greene - Pink Satin

There was silence. Amazing, how much physical hurt he could feel, just like that, just that sharp and searing.

His hand dropped and he straightened.

The cat was waiting for him in the hall. Swearing silently under his breath, he foraged in Greer’s kitchen cupboards until he found the cat food, then filled Truce’s dish. The cat attacked the first bite as if starved, looked up and promptly wound himself around Ryan’s legs with a thunderous purr.

Warmth clearly rated over hunger. Ryan petted the cat, crouched on Greer’s kitchen floor in the semidarkness. At that moment, the feline struck him as remarkably like Greer. Greer, too, craved warmth, physical contact, touch and affection. And denied the existence of hunger. The very natural hunger that was an extension of affection, as natural as breathing.

The cat wasn’t interested in his comparison. For fifteen minutes, Ryan stroked Truce, until he was finally sated enough to bounce soundlessly back to the food bowl, purring like a Mercedes. Ryan straightened. “Why do I get the impression that you’ll be on the foot of her bed within five minutes of my leaving here?” he murmured dryly, and then moved toward the door.

He spotted the phone en route, silently took it off its hook and placed a couch pillow over it. The cat, fool that it was, followed him. “Go back and eat,” he ordered it quietly, “and then you go right ahead and sleep with Greer. I’m warning you now, though, that your days are numbered.”

The cat didn’t seem impressed.

He let himself out of the apartment, crossed the hall and stuck a key in his own lock. “I’m talking to cats now,” he muttered dourly. “That woman has a lot to answer for.”

Soon, his mind echoed silently.

“Greer?”

Marie’s high-pitched voice caught Greer in midstride. She backed up two paces to the open door of the finishing room. Marie frantically motioned her inside.

“I’ve been waiting to catch you all day. I want to show you something.”

It was that kind of Monday. All day Greer had tried to hide behind her desk with a good solid dose of depression, but the outside world just wouldn’t give her time. Impatiently, she followed Marie past the steady hum of sewing machines, into the small spotless room beyond, where the garments were stored. Marie stood on tiptoe and took a garment from a hanger, laying it over her arms for Greer’s inspection.

“What do you think?”

Greer shifted the papers in her arms to a nearby chair, dropped her glasses to her nose and delicately fingered the sparkling material. The shift was long and sleek, with dolman sleeves and a high side slit. “Not lamé?” she questioned.

“Of course not lamé. A metallic acetate; it cleans like a dream. Of course, it is a bit wicked…”

“Decadent,” Greer murmured dryly.

“Maybe a little too ‘thirties.’”

“It’s very thirties,” Greer agreed thoughtfully.

“You don’t like it.” Marie’s voice fell.

Greer peeked over her glasses with a grin. “You know darn well it’s fantastic. For the holidays. Is that what you had in mind?”

“Of course.”

Greer again fingered the shiny material. “I think that’s exactly how we should market it. Decadent. Wicked. We can haul out the old spiel about feeling irresistibly sexy when completely covered from neck to toe…” She was murmuring to herself more than to Marie, until the other woman laughed.

“You always know exactly what I have in mind,” she said triumphantly. “If you could only draw, you would be a great designer. Outstanding.”

Greer looked slightly alarmed. “You’re not going to start that again-”

“No, of course not. The last time I tried to show you the techniques of drawing, you gave me a migraine. You drew a breast the size of a nose. Your people looked like stick figures. Your-”

“Yes,” Greer interrupted, chuckling, and handed the shift back to Marie. “You left a note on my desk this morning. Something about thread?”

Marie hung up the garment with loving fingers. “For the trade show, yes. I know today’s only Monday, and you won’t leave for two more days, but I wanted to ask you about Barteau.”

Greer looked blank.

“He will be there. You will give him a kiss from me, and then you will steal every little tidbit of information you can. I want to know what he is up to. How much cotton is he using this year? How much finishing is he doing by hand? And most important, you must get his thread. Steal some, if you can. I hear he has found a new silk blend, a stronger fiber, but where he’s getting it…”

“Steal some thread?” Greer echoed wryly.

“Now, don’t get that look, darling. And keep in mind that Barteau will probably peek under your skirts if you let him. He was a dirty old man even when I studied under him, and he was only in his twenties then. Now.” Marie folded her arms over her chest as Greer picked up her folders. “We are all alone, not a soul here. What’s wrong?”

Greer was halfway to the door, and turned. “There’s nothing wrong.”

“Of course there is. You didn’t eat lunch; you barely said a word at the sales meeting this morning. Your eyes are sad. Something happened between Friday and today. A man?” Marie guessed.

“A bad case of no sleep.” Greer was willing to admit to that.

“Fib.”

“All problems are not caused by men,” Greer suggested mildly.

“Only the problems worth having. The circles under your eyes are a positive sign. A good lover should make you tired. But not listless, chérie.” Marie shook her head. “I can see from your face you do not want to talk. Fine, that is your business. But should you ever need an expert-”

Marie winked, her smile full of affection and humor, and for a moment Greer almost hesitated. Marie would listen, she knew. But Greer never burdened anyone else with her problems, and to discuss anything as personal as the touchy relationship between love and sex-never. She shook her head. “You’re a sweetie. But there’s nothing, really,” she assured Marie, and they parted at the stairs.

In her office, Greer sank into her chair, slipped off her cream-colored sandals and slid her glasses on top of her head. Depression promptly caved in on her like an avalanche. Never having catered much to the moody blues, she wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. And today was merely an extension of the day before.

Sunday she’d wakened alone, mortified and lost as she recalled making love with Ryan. She’d taken her car and simply driven half the day, going nowhere, thinking nothing. By late afternoon, she returned, knowing she had to face him.

She’d found him in the back courtyard, barbecuing steaks. Two steaks. There seemed no question in his mind that she’d arrive on time to share them with him. He’d looked incredibly lazy and easy in cutoffs and a loose dark shirt; he’d dropped a kiss on her mouth the minute he saw her; he’d forced her to absolutely stuff herself full of steak, foil-cooked corn dripping in butter and éclairs he’d picked up earlier at a bakery.

And when dinner was over, it was dark and the mosquitoes had started buzzing. Greer and Ryan had separated and gone to their respective apartments. There’d been a kiss that could have resurrected fire from dead ash, but Ryan hadn’t pressed. He’d been warm, affectionate and funny. Disastrously easy to be with. But he’d clearly expected to sleep alone that night.

Greer was not surprised.

Depressed, but not surprised. Absently, she plucked an imaginary speck of lint from her oyster-colored linen skirt and then stared at her outfit darkly. The oyster skirt, cocoa blouse and pearls were old favorites, a choice based on past experience to pick up her mood. They were failing her.

She wasn’t much of a lover. She was good at listening, and terrific at making pot pies; her empathy was laudable, and she was just plain excellent at her job. But she’d never been much of a lover.

Wearily, she touched her fingers to her temples, denting the skin white with unconscious pressure. She had known that, long before she got involved with Ryan. And she’d sensed up front that Ryan would be an exciting, imaginative and experienced lover. Too experienced to be fooled by a lady trying to fake it.

He was the last man she should have let herself fall in love with.

“Looks to me like our resident sex symbol needs a drink.”

Her head popped up to see Ray lounging in the doorway, the sleeves of his white linen shirt rolled up at the cuffs, his spotless black suit pants perfectly creased. His tone, as always, overflowed with husky seductiveness. And as always, it grated on Greer’s nerves.

She could barely keep the impatience out of her voice. “I take it you got the figures back from the regional sales studies we did?”

He nodded. “But it looks to me as if you’re much more in a mood for a bottle of wine and a night of love than discussing Midwestern sales patterns.”

Greer reached out for the folder in his hand. “I’ll settle for the statistics on girdle sales in Ohio, but thanks.”

He dropped the file on her desk. “One of these days you’re going to realize what you’re missing.”

“I’ll survive,” she assured him as she thumbed through the statistics he’d brought her. “Did I tell you this or did I tell you this? The Corn Belt’s going nuts for negligees.”

“Not exactly the Corn Belt, but close enough.” Ray lowered himself into the chair by her desk, his lazy black eyes skimming over her figure in the cocoa blouse. He was a man who specialized in mentally stripping women; yet Greer had never figured out how his eyes could be so opaque, so unreadable. “I won’t say I didn’t resent Grant’s pushing you into my marketing corner, but I have to admit you know your stuff. Now, Southern women I would have guessed, but never that the farmers’ wives would go for frills and lace.”