Promises in the Night: A Classic Romance - Book 2 (2 page)

That does it, Franklin. Next time you
will
make the speech.

She droned on, “Two hours a week can change your life.” She’d sell her soul for one friendly face, one person who seemed to understand what she was trying to say.

Then, suddenly, Larkin saw him. The fifth row, center. About thirty-five, dark brown hair greying slightly at the temples, neatly trimmed beard and mustache. He was the picture of the powerful businessman in his expensive silk shirt, the kind of man who should be up there on the podium instead of Larkin. He was watching her intently, leaning forward in his seat as if to catch every word.

“The boundaries you set during your nine-to-five life needn’t restrict you after you...”

Larkin couldn’t resist meeting the dark-haired man’s eyes again. He smiled, and she saw the flash of white teeth, felt the quick jolt of energy that radiated from him. He was listening, really listening, to what, she had to say.

This brief flash of one-to-one communication reminded her of her days in the corps de ballet, when she was one of a group of nameless, faceless dancers whose main job was to preserve their anonymity as a backdrop to the prima ballerina. Sometimes, though, she would catch the eye of one person in the audience, one wonderful person who somehow acknowledged Larkin’s own uniqueness. Someone who made it worthwhile.

Like this man in the fifth row, center.

She took a deep breath and let the remaining index cards fall to the floor at her feet.

Patti’s backstage groan could be heard all the way to the rafters.

“How many of you came here to meet somebody?” Silence. “Come on,” she said, walking along the lip of the stage, “I know you’ve all come to this singles’ seminar for a reason, and I’ll bet it’s not to learn how to conjugate Latin verbs.” More laughter, but this time it was easier and louder.

“Be honest. How many came here today hoping it was an all-day happy hour?”

A woman in a green feathered hat raised her hand; a man on the aisle raised his and in moments, the auditorium was a sea of hands.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” she said. “Well, if all you want out of life is a body next to yours each night, then maybe this is your chance to go outside for a cup of coffee, because that’s not what I want to talk to you about!’

Larkin headed back to the lectern, took a sip of water and looked out at the audience. No one had left. In fact, it seemed that no one had so much as blinked.

Well, I’ll be damned,
she thought.
So this is what public speaking is all about.

“Loneliness is big business,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “Most of us on the program today make a living off loneliness with promises of matches made in heaven and nights of ecstasy, if you only take this cruise, or join that health spa.” She paused for effect. “I can’t promise you anything.”

She let her gaze slowly travel the room, and once again, she was drawn to the darkly handsome man with the silky beard who had been giving her his undivided attention. His gaze was level and direct, with none of the preening, obvious looks of a man on the make. It was a serious face as well as a handsome one, and she had the impression of a dynamic brain at work behind those intense eyes. She didn’t know if it was her romantic nature or not, but there seemed to be a slightly haunted look to him, a vague shadow of something that made her yearn to hold him in her arms.

This was not the time, though, for romantic fantasies, no matter how pleasant.

“I can’t promise you’ll meet the man of your dreams taking French at the Learning Center, or that Linda Evans’s twin sister will be sitting next to you at one of our Great Books discussions. The only thing I can promise you is that if you give us some of your spare time, we’ll send you home each night with much more than the memory of five vodka martinis and four hours of half-witted, half-heard conversation—we’ll send you home with ideas. We’ll send you home with dreams.”

The audience burst into spontaneous applause, and Larkin sought out the eyes of the man in the fifth row.

He was still watching her, his handsome face serious and intense. Then, suddenly he broke into a smile so dazzling that her stomach took the express elevator to her feet.

You did it,
his look said.
You won them over. Congratulations.

She smiled back at him, acknowledging her triumph, then settled down to make the speech of her life.

S
he was incredible
. Absolutely incredible.

But, of course, Alex had known that the second she glided across the stage with a kind of magical star quality that defied even his most logical mind. There was no getting away from the fact that she was sexy as hell—half the men in the audience would have hocked their Rolexes to spend an hour with her—but it went beyond the obvious for Alex, even though the obvious was quite appealing.

He found himself as fascinated by what Larkin Walker had to say as he was fascinated by the terrific way she looked when she said it.

“Get a load of those legs,” Harry, beside him, mumbled as Larkin strode the length of the stage, pulling the audience into her speech by the sheer force of her personality. “I wonder how they’d—”

“Shut up,” Alex snapped.

Harry turned to him, a look of surprise and amusement on his weathered face.

“Sorry.” Alex had surprised himself with the suddenness and force of his remark. “I want to hear what she’s saying.”

Harry’s bushy eyebrows arched over the tops of his glasses but he said nothing, which made Alex even more uncomfortable. His reputation for being cool, logical Dr. Jakobs was being shot to hell, but at the moment he didn’t care. All his concentration was zeroed in on the woman with the cloud of angel’s hair who was wrapping the audience—and a very surprised Alex—around her little finger.

I
t was going better
than Larkin’s wildest dreams.

From the second she tossed aside her index cards and began to speak from the heart, they had been ripe for the plucking. The shield of boredom that had separated the audience from her had lifted, and she felt as if her words were really meeting their mark.

And even though she tried hard not to be obvious, she was again and again drawn to the enigmatic man in the fifth row whose intense eyes had been riveted to her from the moment she came out onstage.

She paused, her gaze scanning the crowd, then once again focusing in on him. He was leaning forward in his seat, as if he wanted to bridge the distance between them.

She stepped away from the lectern and walked over to the edge of the stage. “Follow your own dreams; expand your world by learning new skills or seeking out new experiences.” She took a deep breath. “You only live once, and if you do it right, that can be enough. I promise you the Learning Center can help you do it right. Thank you.”

Now where on earth was the applause?

Her stomach lurched sideways, and a pulse in her throat hammered so hard that she prayed someone in the audience knew CPR. She glanced offstage, expecting at least to see Patti applauding her, but apparently even her devoted assistant had abandoned the sinking ship.

She straightened her shoulders and was about to leave with whatever shreds of dignity she could muster, when the audience exploded into a thousand questions, and it seemed as if they were all directed right at her.

Mac Mulrooney, the emcee, was still onstage, and he beamed at her as if he’d just discovered uranium in his driveway.

“Go for it,” he whispered. “You got ‘em right where you want ‘em.”

Larkin pointed to a man in the second row who wore enough gold around his neck to balance the deficit. “What’s your phone number?”

“The Learning Center’s phone number is in the brochure you got at registration. Call me anytime you need class information.”

The woman in the green hat with the blue feather raised her hand. “Do you teach belly dancing?”

“Only tap dancing, right now, but I’ll note your request.”

She caught some movement in the fifth row and looked toward the bearded man. He was saying something to the man next to him. His serious face was lit up by a smile and she wondered why he didn’t smile more often:

“Over there, Larkin.”

She heard Mac Mulrooney’s stage-whispered prompting, and she directed her attention to a young woman who wanted to know if the Center taught ikebana, Japanese flower arranging. Everyone wanted to know something, wanted to learn something. Everyone, that is, except the man in the fifth row.

She looked over at him, made eye contact and smiled invitingly. “I have a few more seconds before Mac drags me off the stage. Any more questions?”
Please ask me something—my phone number, anything. I want to know what makes you look the way you do.

Larkin held her breath while he flipped through a few pages of his spiral-bound notebook, glanced at something, then seemed about to speak up when Mulrooney, with the most damnable timing imaginable, appeared next to her.

“Okay, everybody, that’s it for this session. Larkin will, be available during the cocktail party this afternoon for more questions.”

“Mac, I’m sure I could—”

He began hustling her off the stage. “Oh, no, you can’t, Larkin. They want you in the next room pronto for a radio interview.”

She looked out into the audience. The bearded man met her eyes, smiled ruefully, and then shrugged his broad shoulders. Her spirits fell. Who knew if he’d even stay for the cocktail party?

“You’re a cruel taskmaster, Mac,” she said as she followed him off the stage. “I think you’ve just ruined my life.”

“Ruined it? Honey, with the publicity you’re about to get, the sky’s the limit. Now, let’s move it. You’re on in three minutes.”

Damn it,
she thought as she stole one more look at the man in the fifth row, center.
If you’d asked just one question, I would have stayed here all afternoon.

A
heavy rain
lashed against the windows of the enclosed garden-style restaurant, casting a silvery-grey light on everything and everybody, Alex included.

“Is there something wrong with the spinach pie, sir?”

Alex looked up into the worried face of a waiter barely out of his teens, and shook his head. “It’s fine,” he said distractedly, aware of Harry’s curious gaze. “Everything’s just fine.”

Harry waited until the young waiter was just out of earshot. “There must be something wrong somewhere, because you sure aren’t touching your lunch.”

“Why the interest in my dietary habits, Harry? Are you a silent partner in this place?”

“I couldn’t be a silent partner in anything,” Harry said with a chuckle. “You’ve just been real quiet since we left the Sheraton. I’m just wondering, Doc.”

“I’m fine.” Alex made a show of devouring a healthy forkful of spinach pie. “Just preoccupied, that’s all.”

“A patient?”

Alex nodded his head. One of the few advantages to his profession was this ability to sidestep discussions of his own behavior with that simple, all-encompassing explanation. It wasn’t that far from the truth—not this time.

From the moment Larkin Walker left the podium at the hotel, Alex had been trying to figure out a logical explanation for the decidedly illogical way he’d been feeling, and so far, all his training and experience in understanding human behavior had him coming up empty-handed.

One minute he’d been bored out of his mind, ready to tell Mathison he couldn’t possibly do the article for
Metro Monthly,
and the next he’d felt as if his entire body had been hooked up to the most elemental source of power on earth.

Larkin Walker took her place behind the lectern, and his heart thudded against his rib cage, his palms broke into a sweat, his even breathing grew erratic. All the classic symptoms so popular in romantic fantasy had swooped down on him at once and turned him into a believer.

“I need a vacation,” he mumbled.

“What was that, Doc?”

“Just talking to myself, Harry.”

Harry grinned. “I don’t blame you. She was a knockout.”

“The woman from the Learning Center?” Harry nodded. “Fascinating speaker.”

“Now, I may be an old married man, Doc, but I’m not so old or so married that 1 don’t recognize fireworks when I see ‘em,” Harry said. “She couldn’t take her eyes off you.”

Alex did his damnedest to ignore the ridiculous pleasure Harry’s words gave him.

“I don’t know how you missed it, Doc,” Harry continued. “Right there at the end, she practically begged you to ask a question. I may wear glasses but I’m not blind.”

“Take it slow with the beer, Harry. It’s doing funny things to your brain.”

“The hell it is. I’m telling you, she couldn’t take her eyes off you. A woman like that gives him the eye all morning, and the only thing he can think about is his spinach pie. Maybe you should have gone flying today, after all, Doc.”

Alex thought of the way his spirits had soared skyward when Larkin Walker first stepped onto that stage. He’d been flying all right. If Harry only knew.

He glanced at his watch. “Let’s go, Harry. I don’t want to miss the two o’clock workshop on flirtation for fun and profit. That should be good for at least two paragraphs.”

Harry quaffed the rest of his beer and pushed his chair away from the table. “I hear the speaker used to run a—you should excuse the expression—cathouse in. Nevada before she hit the seminar trail. Some of the guys said...” Harry was off and running on another one of his stories about the adventures of his photographer friends.

Alex didn’t care if they missed the madam’s speech or the belly dancer’s demonstration or the panel discussion on weight control and romance. All he wanted was a chance to talk to Larkin Walker.

All he wanted was the chance to feel alive again.

F
rom a sound system
somewhere in the enormous ballroom, the Pointer Sisters were singing “I’m So Excited,” and Larkin found their recorded exuberance a strange counterpoint to the malaise that dominated the room. She’d kept an eye out for the bearded man who had captured her attention during her morning speech, but apparently he had found more interesting things to do.

She could hardly blame him. This was the fourth interview she’d done since the radio broadcast, where she had been trapped between an aging disco king and a moderator with more on her mind than reaching the public, and Larkin was getting tired of hearing herself talk.

“I’m almost thirty-one,” she said to the WPIX-TV reporter who had posed the question. “And, yes, I did dance with the Empire Ballet Company and the Rockettes.

Boring, boring, boring. That everyone was so fascinated with her dancing background, now that she was no longer dancing, infuriated her. Where were they when she was struggling along in the corps de ballet or dancing sixth-from-the-center in the chorus line at Radio City?

She sipped her glass of club soda and listened to Adele from the School for Advancement outline her years on the society circuit in Manhattan and her desire to “do something for people without her advantages.”

The reporter’s attention swiveled back to Larkin. “The corps de ballet and the Rockettes? Isn’t that a strange combination?”

Larkin tried to ignore the murderous look in Adele’s eyes. “Not that strange for the daughter of a Rockette. I could tap dance before I could walk.”

“Upholding a family tradition?”

Larkin smiled as a photographer shot another picture. “You could say that. It was nice to be reminded that dancing didn’t have to be so deadly serious all the time.”

“Where does the ballet come in?” he continued.

“The ballet was my dream since childhood,” she said, wincing as a flashbulb popped. “Unfortunately, I was never more than mediocre. One day I woke up, finally realized it and decided it was time to hang up my toe shoes.”

“Quite a story, my dear,” Adele said, smiling sweetly up at Larkin for the photographer’s benefit. “And where did you meet Vladimir Karpov?”

Larkin’s smile faltered. “Certainly not at a tap dance festival.” She turned to the reporter. “By the way, the Learning Center has a wonderful six-week course on tap. Time steps, a specialty.”

Adele was not to be sidetracked so easily. “You must tell me, Larkin, dear, is Vladimir quite as—shall I say—virile as his public image?”

George from Hofstra stepped into the fray. “I hate to interrupt this segment of
Entertainment Tonight,
Adele, but I thought we were here to talk about our schools.” Adele glared at him. “I may not have been a Rockette, but Hofstra has a pretty good story to tell.”

God bless you, George-from-Hofstra.
Larkin took another sip of her club soda and listened politely as George outlined the success of the university’s Sunday Workshop series. Her relationship with Vladimir Karpov, Bolshoi ballet star whose defection to the U.S. had been front page news, seemed as if it had happened a hundred years ago. She found it hard to remember her own naiveté, her own unabashed delight at being singled out by him. She had grown so much since that time, both as a woman and as a businessperson, that it always surprised her when someone like Adele managed to turn Larkin’s one love affair into the high point of her life.

Better get used to this,
Larkin thought, glancing at Adele, who managed to look sly even in profile. If Vladimir agreed to speak at the Learning Center during his New York run in November—well, she could just imagine the field day people like Adele would have.

A camera crew joined the reporter. The female member angled the lights toward Larkin, and a second later a knot of people quickly surrounded Larkin, George and Adele. Larkin spotted two especially healthy male specimens from a local gym as they flexed their muscles near the cameras, obviously hoping for some publicity of their own.

Laughter from the other side of the room drew her attention, but the bright TV lights made it impossible for her to see anything at all.
Give up. He’s probably at home with his wife and children, a hell of a lot happier than you are this minute.

“It has been my experience that adult courses attract a large number of upwardly mobile singles,” George was saying over the din of music and conversation.

“Of course they do, George.” Adele heaved an exaggerated sigh. “That’s what it’s all about. Continuing education courses are the singles’ bars of the eighties.”

“I hope we’re providing more of a service than that,” Larkin said. “We’d like to provide food for thought as well as food for the ego.”

“Certainly you’re not an idealist, my dear.” Adele’s laugh was brittle as dry ice. “This seminar is about the care and feeding of the unmarried, isn’t it?”

“Claws in, Adele. Just because your weekend seminars haven’t earned back the cost of your brochures is no reason to lash out at Ms. Walker.” George raised his empty wineglass at Larkin in salute. “Success brings its own hardships,” he said. “Adele happens to be one of them.”

Larkin, who heartily disliked being in the middle of someone else’s war, put her arm around Adele in a companionable gesture. “Do you hear that man?” she asked. “Anything to keep Hofstra’s competition at bay.”

“Hofstra has no competition.” George rose to the bait. “We have the oldest continuing education program on the Island.”

“I beg your pardon, George!” Adele’s pique with Larkin was forgotten. “It just so happens that--”

Under cover of George and Adele’s spirited disagreement, Larkin turned and slipped away from the crowd. However, she had gotten no more than fifteen feet away when a deep male voice behind her said, “Bravo, Ms. Walker. I admire a woman who knows when to retreat.”

She spun around and looked up into the beautiful grey eyes of Mr. Fifth-Row-Center. “Well, well,” she said, not even bothering to pretend she didn’t recognize him. “I thought you’d given up on this singles’ seminar.”

“You’re a very popular woman, Ms. Walker. I had one hell of a time finding you in the crowd you attracted.”

He had seemed good-looking from a distance, but up close, this man was dazzling. His hair was a rich chestnut color, slightly silver at the temples. The top, though, was liberally sun-streaked, as if he’d just returned from the Bahamas—a devastating combination.

He extended his hand. “I’m Alex Jakobs.”

She smiled and shook it. His fingers were long and aristocratic, his grip firm and assured. “Larkin Walker.” He smiled back at her, but she noted that the hint of sadness she thought she’d imagined was still there in his eyes. “Are you here as a participant or attendee?”

“Neither.” He pulled a slim notebook from his breast pocket. “A voyeur.”

“The press?”

“Metro Monthly.
I’m covering this as a favor to an old friend who has the annoying habit of calling in his debts.”

“And what do you do when you’re not repaying old debts?”

“I’m a psychologist.”

“A psychologist?” It was the last thing on earth she would have imagined.

“What’s the matter? Don’t I look responsible enough?”

“It’s not that,” Larkin said. “It’s just that not exactly what I expected.”

“Were you looking for a variation on Sigmund Freud?”

Larkin already had one foot in her mouth; she might as well try for two. “Not exactly,” she said, praying that he had a sense of humor as well developed as his intellect. “How about Dr. Ruth?”

He threw back his head, and laughed, a deep, rumbling laugh that sounded a bit rusty, as if it had been a long time since he’d had occasion to let loose like that. “Dr. Ruth? Among other differences—both major and minor—I don’t deal solely in matters sexual.”

“Then you must be in the minority of your profession. If visibility counts for anything, two out of three psychologists are hot on the trail of the perfect orgasm.”

“You have it all wrong, Larkin.” His grey eyes twinkled with amusement. “They’re not searching for the perfect orgasm; they’re searching for the top slot on
The New York Times
best-seller list.”

“And what about you? Why aren’t you pounding the keyboard?”

“I’ve done my share, but my area of expertise doesn’t lend itself well to serialization in
Cosmopolitan
or
Star.”

“So what is your area of expertise?”

“Adults in transition.”

“Which means what, exactly?”

“I counsel men and women whose lives have undergone major change.”

Larkin sipped her club soda. “Like separation and divorce?”

He looked away for a split second. “Both of those things,” he said finally. “And death.”

“That must be very difficult work,” she said, impulsively touching his hand. “I don’t know how on earth people adjust to the loss of a—”

“They do.” He cut off the rest of her words. “They go through all the stages of grief, and each stage seems to last an eternity in hell, but somehow they survive.” He looked down to where her hand still rested on his. “And one day, they’re even happy they did.”

He knows,
Larkin thought.
He knows firsthand.

She broke the awkward silence, “The vultures are about to descend.” She pointed toward the film crew who were preparing to swoop down upon them. “I don’t think I can stand talking about my days as a Rockette again.” She also didn’t want to answer any pointed questions about Vladimir and that long-ago time.

Alex put one large hand beneath her elbow. “Come with me. I know a place where we can talk.”

A
lex found
them a booth in The Tree House, a plant-filled bar—complete with oak beams and skylights—that overlooked the hotel lobby.

“That was quite a display of broken-field running, Dr. Jakobs. Do the Jets know about you?”

“Who do you think taught them all they know?”

She leaned back against the softly cushioned banquette and eased her feet out of her black heels. She grinned sheepishly. “Dancers have the ugliest feet in the world.”

“That’s not what I was looking at.” His attention had been caught by the hem of her dress, which had ridden up over her thigh.