Fantasy Unlimited Read online

  But Josh's words had rung true. There had been sincerity in them, intense feeling and a desperation that she recognised as akin to her own. In the midst of all that falseness, he had, as she had, not been able to trust his own emotions. It had taken her a long while to understand that she had fallen in love with Josh; she could understand why it had taken him even longer to realise that he had fallen in love with her. Fallen in love with her. Samantha hugged the words to herself, cherished them, luxuriated in them and, in doing so, discovered that they had changed the world for her. The sky seemed that much bluer, the air that much sweeter, the sun that much brighter.

  'Hello, Miss Lorimer. You're looking chipper today.'

  'Thank you, Thomas, you're looking pretty good yourself.'

  'Oh, I'm getting a little creaky around the knees, but I get around.'

  Samantha smiled at him as he gave her the keys to her grandmother's apartment. Thomas must be close to seventy years old, an elderly gentleman who had a full head of white hair and who wore his uniform with as much spit and polish as a five-star general. He had acted as both building superintendent and weekend doorman for as long as Samantha could remember.

  'Your grandmother is sure keen on telegrams. I thought the end of the world had come last night when I got mine,' he told her.

  Samantha knew what Thomas meant. Most people used telegrams for emergencies, but Margaret used them for personal letters. This time the one sent to Samantha had been particularly imperious. She was ordered to 'Go to the apartment and make head or tail out of the mail. Stop. Thomas will give you the key. Stop.' No pleases, no thank yous, no explanations. Just typical Margaret!

  'Do you know when she's coming back, Thomas?'

  'I'm afraid not, Miss Lorimer. She isn't the type to stick to a schedule anyway. But we do know one thing.'

  'What's that?'

  'Whatever she's doing she's having a whale of a time!'

  Samantha was still smiling when the elevator ponderously and creakily arrived at the fifth floor. The building was elegant but also old, and the lock on the door to her grandmother's apartment complained as she twisted the key in it. Inside the apartment, the air was cool but slightly stale, and the furniture sat in the darkness. Samantha opened the curtain in the den to let in some light, then sneezed when a small tornado of dust was raised by the swinging fabric.

  The den was one of the smallest rooms in the apartment, a cubbyhole, really, with an ornately carved wooden desk in it, a chair and a small bookcase. On the desk was a huge pile of envelopes of all kinds and sizes.

  Sitting down, Samantha began to separate the mail; Cassie's to one side and Margaret's in two piles, business and personal. She knew why the telegram had come: Margaret wanted Samantha to pay her bills. She had a horror of being charged interest just because she was on vacation and couldn't pay her charge accounts on time. Samantha sorted the envelopes quickly. Bloomingdale's. Saks Fifth Avenue. American Express. Bendel's, Alexander's. Fortunoffs. Fantasy Unlimited. Gristede's. Fantasy Unlimited.

  Samantha stared at the envelope and then smiled to herself. It was probably just part of the correspondence that had been required to cancel the fantasy her grandmother had purchased for her. Dear, sweet Margaret, who had been convinced that her granddaughter was totally incapable of finding a man on her own. As she opened the envelope, Samantha contemplated with a happy serenity just how surprised Margaret was going to be when she discovered that her granddaughter was not only fully capable of finding a wonderful, sexy man, but also of falling in love with him and having that love wholeheartedly returned. She imagined with great pleasure Margaret's shocked expression and Cassie's surprise and approval. She had those faces in her mind's eye when she removed the letter from the envelope and unfolded it.

  In compliance with your own private fantasy, she read, a shipboard romance in the Greek Islands. Paid in full.

  The last three words had been handwritten, in blue ink, in a rounded script.

  Paid in full.

  Samantha stared at the letter and then said with a disbelieving voice as she pushed back her chair, 'Oh, no. Absolutely not. Never!'

  Why keep deluding yourself, baby? Here it is—the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

  Samantha would have dearly loved to know where the voice came from, that way she could slam the door on it for ever. She hated its cruel cynicism and ugly turn of phrase. She had no reason, she told herself firmly, to doubt Josh or the fact that he loved her. She had no reason, she reassured herself, to believe that he had been contracted to speak those words to her, to have been paid several thousands of dollars to perform...

  Sex acts, love acts. Words of sweet nothing spoken into your ear.

  Samantha's jaw clenched with an audible crack and, although it was Sunday, she pulled the telephone to her, scattering bills and letters in every direction. With fingers that were cold but steady, she picked up the receiver and dialled. Somewhere in Manhattan, in an office building perhaps, a phone rang and rang and rang. She could imagine it there, the sound echoing from the walls, the ceiling and the floor. She could picture the empty desk, the covered typewriter, the tidy in-basket, pens and pencils neatly arranged in the top drawer. Finally, when it was quite obvious that the Bell system had done the best for her that it could, she slammed down the receiver.

  Good try, sweetheart, but let's just face the facts, shall we?

  She knew the facts, she told herself and, carefully folding the Fantasy Unlimited invoice in half, she put it in her bag.

  He was playing with you, having a good time. There are lots of men like that—tomcats who sniff after every available...

  With a superhuman effort of will-power, she stifled the voice, pushed it far down to the bottom of her mind and ignored its clamouring attempts to rise to the surface once again. And then, with the sort of calm that is born out of sheer desperation, she rearranged the scattered envelopes and began to open Margaret's bills, one by one.

  The buzzing came out of a dark haze. At first it came in spurts, but then it seemed to swoop down on her and then flit around her head like a heavy, droning bee. Restlessly, Samantha turned over, but the buzzing continued, an incessant and irritating sound. Finally she opened her eyes, stared into the darkness and realised that it was the sound of the buzzer on her intercom, the one that connected the outer lobby of her building to her apartment.

  She reached up, switched on the light on her bedside-table and wearily glanced at her watch. Four in the morning. Who, in God's name...? Josh. No, it couldn't be. The cruise would just be over; he would barely have had time... but the thought that it might be Josh at her door electrified her and, pushing off the marmalade cat that slept on her feet, she jumped out of bed and ran into the hallway, groping down its darkness until she felt the button to her intercom. She leaned on it hard.

  'Yes?'

  'Sam?'

  His voice was tinny and distorted by the speaker, but she couldn't help the leap of her heart. 'Josh, it's four o'clock!'

  'I know, but the plane was late. Can I come up?'

  'Hold on. I'll buzz the door open.'

  As soon as she'd done that, Samantha raced back to the bathroom, where she dragged on the blue terry bathrobe that hung on the door's hook and then ran a comb through her unruly curls, scrubbed her face and brushed her teeth. Then, when the doorbell rang, she raced back down the hallway, spent what seemed like forever trying to unlock all the hooks and chains on the door with shaking fingers, and finally flung the door open, to find Josh standing there, looking as if he'd just been through a war, His suit was rumpled, his hair fell forward on to his forehead, there were dark circles under his eyes and he was badly in need of a shave.

  For a few seconds they just stared at one another, Josh leaning against his suitcases, Samantha breathing as if she'd just run a marathon.

  Then she said, 'I guess you'd better come in before we wake the neighbours.'

  And he said, 'That sounds like a good idea.'

&
nbsp; She cleared her throat. 'You can put your suitcases here in the hall.'

  Josh heaved the first of his suitcases into the foyer. 'You're recovered from the 'flu?'

  'Oh, yes, I feel fine.'

  The second suitcase followed. 'That's good.'

  The door closed behind him and suddenly her foyer seemed smaller and narrower than it had ever been. Josh loosened his tie with his forefinger, and Samantha said nervously, 'You could hang your jacket in the closet.'

  His dark eyes were grave as they studied her flushed face. 'Thanks.'

  'And... er... would you like some coffee?'

  'That would be nice.'

  'Milk? Sugar?'

  'Just black, please.'

  As he was taking off his jacket, Samantha fled down the hallway to the kitchen. Her heart was pounding and her hands were still trembling as she filled the coffee percolator with water and put mugs and spoons on the counter. Not even the homey, safe warmth of her kitchen or the comforting sensation of Ginger, her marmalade cat, winding through her legs made her relax. He's a stranger, she was thinking with despair. A handsome stranger that she'd met on a vacation, and she hadn't a clue who he was or what he might...

  'You have a nice place,' said Josh, and Samantha whirled around to find that he was standing in the doorway, carefully watching her.

  The sugar bowl clattered as she put it down by the sink. 'Thanks. I... like it a lot.' And then, because she was afraid of the awkward silence that might ensue, Samantha added in a bright and brittle voice that made her inwardly wince, 'Was your flight hard?'

  'Twenty-two hours with an hour and a half delay in Rome.'

  'That must have been exhausting.'

  'It was.'

  'You must be tired.'

  'Very.'

  This time there was a silence, and it was just as awful and as awkward as Samantha had feared. To fill it up, she hurriedly opened a drawer and pulled out some napkins.

  Josh stepped forward. 'For God's sake...' he began, and then tripped, falling over Ginger, who had left the safety of Samantha's legs to investigate those of the stranger and begun to make sinuous S's around his ankles.

  'I'm sorry,' Samantha said hurriedly, picking up Ginger and holding the cat's warm, furry body close to her chest as if it were a protective shield. 'It's just my cat.'

  Josh straightened up. 'I noticed that,' he said grimly.

  'She likes strangers.'

  'Does she?'

  'Yes, and she's very...'

  'All right, Sam,' he said, and she could see the muscles in his jaw twitch as he clenched his teeth. 'If it's all over. If it was just a game you were playing and now it's over, for God's sake just say so. I've been through that sort of thing before, and I have no intention of being dragged through the wringer again. Not by you or anyone else.'

  Samantha stared at him. 'What?'

  'I know what these cruises are like,' Josh went on. 'There's a lot of fooling around, a lot of infatuations that die a quick death when it's over. People go home and suddenly remember that they've got a boyfriend in the wings or that they never really liked brown eyes in the first place.'

  He would have gone on, but Samantha stopped him. 'You think I was playing around with you?' she asked incredulously.

  'Just tell the truth,' he said coldly. 'That's all I want.'

  'Well, that's what I want, too,' she said hotly. 'And I'd like to know all about your connection with Fantasy Unlimited.'

  'Fantasy—what?'

  Samantha had dropped Ginger to the floor and grabbed her bag which was sitting on the counter. She opened it and pulled out the Fantasy Unlimited invoice. 'Explain this,' she said, waving the paper at him.

  Josh took it from her, read it and then glanced up. 'What the hell is it?'

  She raised her chin. 'A gift from my grandmother—along with the cruise. It's a paid... fantasy, a romance. I didn't want it; I told her I didn't and I thought she'd cancelled it. But, as you can see, she didn't.'

  'A paid romance? You mean this company would pay some man to give you a romance?'

  'Yes.'

  'With all the trimmings?'

  There was a small glitter of amusement in his eyes that made her even angrier. 'I didn't enquire into the details,' she said coldly. 'I didn't want it.'

  His amusement was spreading. It had gone from lighting his eyes to turning his mouth up into a grin. 'Now, let me get this straight. You think I was involved in this. You think that I was hired by this... Fantasy Unlimited to give you a shipboard romance.'

  Samantha wasn't going to let him laugh at her. 'Weren't you?' she flung at him.

  'Sam, are you crazy?'

  'I'm not crazy,' she said angrily. 'I just wondered about the dancing and kisses under the moonlight, the single rose on my bed, and all the sexy innuendoes.'

  Josh stared at her for a second and then said, 'All right, I'll confess—I wanted to sweep you off your feet so high that you wouldn't know when you'd landed. It had nothing to do with a paid fantasy, but it was done in cold blood.' He gave a short, rueful laugh. 'I guess I wasn't very good at it, actually—a grade B lover!'

  On the contrary, he'd been so marvellous at it that Samantha had fallen hook, line and sinker, but she wasn't about to tell him that. 'So you were manipulating me,' she said, then spat out the words, 'You might as well have been paid!' And, turning away from him so that he couldn't see the hurt on her face, she put her hands on the counter and clenched its sharp edge hard, not hearing as Josh crushed the Fantasy Unlimited invoice into a ball and threw it on the floor.

  'Sam,' he said gently, coming up behind her and putting his hands on her shoulders, 'it was a lot nastier than that. You see, I'd been jilted badly, and I was pretty bitter about it. I had the feeling that all women were rotten, not just the one I'd fallen for. I couldn't strike back at her, but I wanted revenge. Unfortunately, you were my first victim.' The hands were softly kneading her shoulders, and Samantha stared, unseeing, at the textured, grainy wood of her cabinets. 'I didn't pick you out deliberately,' he went on. 'And I can't even say that what I did was done consciously. It was just that I couldn't keep you out of my mind despite all the fighting and arguments over the room. And then, after the night of the storm, I heard Marybeth telling that boyfriend of yours that you couldn't stand me. I told myself that it was a challenge, and I was going to prove to myself, to you and everyone else on that damn boat, that, on the contrary, you were so attracted to me that I could get you into bed any time I wanted.'

  It was hard to let him see just how much his words cut into her, but Samantha turned around to face him. 'And did you prove it to yourself?' she asked. 'Are you happy now?'

  'Sam.' His hands cupped her face, his thumbs stroked her cheeks. 'I fell in love with you. In the middle of it all, I fell head over heels in love with you. You were funny and interesting and unpredictable and... Sam, I didn't know it until you fainted in my arms, but when I took one look at your face, I suddenly realised... Sam, you believe me, don't you?' His eyes gazed deeply into hers and then he added with an obvious wrench, 'If you want me to leave, it you want me to walk out of your life, I'll understand.'

  Samantha looked into the depths of his eyes and saw the misery there and the load of guilt he'd been carrying, and the small ray of hope. It came to her then that the cruise was finally over and, with it, all the deceptions and dishonesty, the illusions and false drama, that fantasy had woven into its enticing, sticky web. And what was left now that the facade had been stripped away was the truth: the plain, unvarnished and wonderful truth.

  His hands dropped down to his sides. 'Tell me to get out, Sam,' he said slowly. 'Go ahead—I'll deserve it.'

  Happiness had begun to grow inside her like a small kernel of sunshine. It spread, its rays reaching into every part of her being and raising her temperature to a delightful, tingling warmth. But she didn't let him see it. Coldly, she said, 'I want to know one thing.'

  'What?' he asked warily.

  'How you knew all that st
uff about the bra I was wearing.'

  He blinked. 'The bra?'

  'When I was sleeping—that first time we met.'

  'Oh, that.' He had the grace to look ashamed. 'Well, you see I had a girlfriend once who left the exact same model in my apartment after she moved out. Er—I should have thrown it out, but I never... er... seemed to get around to it.'

  'You mean—you kept it like a trophy?'

  Josh cleared his throat. 'It's better than putting notches in the headboard of my bed, don't you think?'

  'What I think,' she said severely, 'is that your trophy days are over.'

  'My trophy days...' he began. The wary look on his face had disappeared and that sexy, lazy, attractive grin had come back. 'Are you trying to tell me something, Sam?'

  'You'll have to guess,' she said.

  'You're not letting me off lightly, are you?'

  'Uh-uh,' she said, shaking her head firmly. 'You don't deserve it.'

  'Right,' said Josh, then took a deep breath. 'I have fallen hopelessly in love with you, Miss 93rd Street, and want to suggest that, if you reciprocate my feelings, we might like to commemorate the occasion by deciding on co-habitation leading to the marital state.'

  Samantha was enjoying herself too much to let him off so easily. Her blue eyes danced as she said in a musing tone, 'I suppose I could take it under consideration.'

  But she had just managed to push Josh beyond the limits of his patience. 'The hell with this,' he muttered to no one in particular and, pulling her roughly into his arms, he bent his dark head over hers and gave her the sort of full, hot and passionate kiss that a woman dreams about in her deepest fantasies. Closing her eyes, Samantha allowed herself to revel in all the sensations that came with it; the heat of his tongue, the softness of his lips, the slight roughness of his skin where his beard was coming in.