Lessons Learned

send out when they want to be pursued.”
    Thinking she could bring her temper to order, she gave herself a moment. It didn’t work. “He might have been bigger than you,” she said between her teeth. “But I think you’re just as much of an ass. You’re very much alike.”
    The lenses of his glasses were smoky, but she saw his eyes narrow. “You compare what’s between us with what happened in there?”
    “I’m saying some men don’t take no for an answer graciously. You might have a smoother style, Carlo, but you’re after the same thing, whether it’s a roll in the hay or a cruise on a water bed.”
    He dropped his hand from her arm, then very deliberately tucked both in his pockets. “If I’ve mistaken your feelings, Juliet, I apologize. I’m not a man who finds it necessary or pleasurable to pressure a woman. Do you wish to leave or stay?”
    She felt a great deal of pressure—in her throat, behind her eyes. She couldn’t afford the luxury of giving into it. “I’d like to get to the hotel. I still have some work to do tonight.”
    “Fine.” He left her there to find their host.
     
    Three hours later, Juliet admitted working was impossible. She’d tried all the tricks she knew to relax. A half hour in a hot tub, quiet music on the radio while she watched the sun set from her hotel window. When relaxing failed, she went over the Houston schedule twice. They’d be running from 7:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. , almost nonstop. Their flight to Chicago took off at 6:00.
    There’d be no time to discuss, think or worry about anything that had happened within the last twenty-four hours. That’s what she wanted. Yet when she tried to work on the two-day Chicago stand, she couldn’t. All she could do was think about the man a few steps across the hall.
    She hadn’t realized he could be so cold. He was always so full of warmth, of life. True, he was often infuriating, but he infuriated with verve. Now, he’d left her in a vacuum.
    No. Tossing her notebook aside, Juliet dropped her chin inher hand. No, she’d put herself there. Maybe she could have stood it if she’d been right. She’d been dead wrong. She hadn’t sent any signals to the idiot Tim, and Carlo’s opinion on that still made her steam, but… But she hadn’t even thanked him for helping her when, whether she liked to admit it or not, she’d needed help. It didn’t sit well with her to be in debt.
    With a shrug, she rose from the table and began to pace the room. It might be better all around if they finished off the tour with him cold and distant. There’d certainly be fewer personal problems that way because there’d be nothing personal between them. There’d be no edge to their relationship because they wouldn’t have a relationship. Logically, this little incident was probably the best thing that could have happened. It hardly mattered if she’d been right or wrong as long as the result was workable.
    She took a glimpse around the small, tidy, impersonal room where she’d spend little more than eight hours, most of it asleep.
    No, she couldn’t stand it.
    Giving in, Juliet stuck her room key in the pocket of her robe.
     
    Women had made him furious before. Carlo counted on it to keep life from becoming too tame. Women had frustrated him before. Without frustrations, how could you fully appreciate success?
    But hurt. That was something no woman had ever done to him before. He’d never considered the possibility. Frustration, fury, passion, laughter, shouting. No man who’d known somany women—mother, sisters, lovers—expected a relationship without them. Pain was a different matter.
    Pain was an intimate emotion. More personal than passion, more elemental than anger. When it went deep, it found places inside you that should have been left alone.
    It had never mattered to him to be considered a rogue, a rake, a playboy—whatever term was being used for a man who appreciated women. Affairs came and went, as affairs were supposed to. They lasted no longer than the passion that conceived them. He was a careful man, a caring man. A lover became a friend as desire waned. There might be spats and hard words during the storm of an affair, but he’d never ended one that way.
    It occurred to him that he’d had more spats, more hard words with Juliet than with any other woman. Yet they’d never been lovers. Nor would they be. After pouring a glass of wine, he sat back in a deep chair and closed his eyes. He wanted no woman