Ashley shook her head vehemently. “Not this guy. He would only be interested in the crème de la crème!”
“Ah, but he needs his crème all the time!”
“It doesn’t matter, anyway!” Tara said at last. “I’ll never see the man again. Let’s drop it, shall we? Please?”
She counted herself grateful that they did. Mary was taking classes at Columbia, determined to be an architect when her days as a model came to an end. She began to talk enthusiastically about a certain professor, and Tara found herself swept into the mood, laughing with the others. She longed to agree to Ashley’s suggestion that they all go out to dinner at the end of the day. But she remembered what George had said. She would have to get some sleep.
“I’ve got to go home,” she said with a sigh. “Sorry—I’ve just got to get some rest.”
Ashley instantly looked contrite and worried. “Are you all right, Tara? Want me to come with you? I can make you something to eat. You can shower and go straight to bed.”
Tara shook her head. “No, thanks, Ashley. I’m capable of making my own dinner—honest! Go, have a good time!”
They parted on the street. Tara let the others get the first cab, and, to her frustration, it took her almost half an hour to get another. It was nearly seven when she reached her apartment.
She kicked off her shoes by the door, sighed softly and went into the kitchen to put on a kettle for tea. While she waited for the water to boil, she drew a hot bubble bath. When her tea was made, she took it and a paperback thriller into the bathroom, where she relaxed in the tub, while a frozen dinner cooked in the oven.
She couldn’t seem to get into the book. It was wonderful—but her mind was a mess. She didn’t want to think about the past, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. She kept remembering that she was going to Caracas again. And she kept seeing that city, and then Tine, herself—and Jimmy.
Tara sighed, sipped her tea and set it down on the tile floor, gave up on the book—and settled back into the bubble bath, closing her eyes.
Caracas…
It had been all over by then. All over between her and Tine. She had met him at seventeen, fallen in love with him before she was twenty.
By the time they had reached Caracas, she had almost hated him.
She wasn’t quite sure when the beginning of the end had come. She had adored Tine at first. He had been like a benevolent magician, come to turn her world around, to offer her money to ease her family’s distress, to give her fame and glamour. He had asked nothing of her—not at first. He had been tall and slim and capable of the slowest, sexiest smile in the universe.
Tine had known how to bide his time. She had been raised rigidly and morally. But on her twentieth birthday she had gone to him, and before her twenty-first birthday they were living together.
The trouble had started in small ways. Her family had embarrassed him; she had been fiercely loyal. He wanted to control her contracts. He didn’t want her sending money home; he didn’t want her creating scholarships for the local high school students who were caught in the same economic prison in which she herself had been confined. He didn’t want her to have lunch with her friends—not even to make phone calls!
When he had begun to insist that she marry him, she had backed away, already disillusioned. When she had begun to fight—he’d eased off, and reminded her that he had made her. Very subtly, he’d reminded her that he could also break her. And, of course, he had still been Tine. So good-looking, so male, so capable of overpowering the staunchest convictions that she could muster.
But in Caracas she’d escaped him. And, wandering through the city streets, joining a tour of the old cathedral, she’d realized that she really was coming to hate him, and that she couldn’t stay with him a minute longer. He meant to rule her—and she wasn’t about to be ruled or imprisoned by anyone.
On that same afternoon, walking past the shops, she had suddenly paused, caught by the reflection in a window of a young man’s eyes.
She had turned quickly to meet him face-to-face. He didn’t turn away. He had been young and handsome and more. She was accustomed to men’s looks, accustomed to sighing with the realization that they were usually interested in just one thing.
It wasn’t that he didn’t display that same hunger. But it was tempered somehow with laughter and humor. His eyes had held a wistful appreciation, and he’d smiled so nicely that she discovered herself smiling back.
They talked as they walked along, and they wound up having dinner. He told Tara that he was a tourist. She told him her business. He said that he knew her business—any man with life and breath in him knew who she was.
And somehow she had poured out her story to him. And in speaking to him, she’d realized uneasily that she was afraid of Tine.
“If you need help, if you’re ever afraid, just call me. I’ll be there, understand?”
She knew his offer was honest. He really didn’t want anything; he wasn’t making any demands. He was actually offering to be her friend.
That night she’d told Tine that she was leaving him. First he’d reminded her harshly that they were both working. Then he’d tried his subtle magic on her.
And she had known that it was truly over, because she felt nothing for him. When she had told him that, he’d called her a liar, but it had been true.
Sitting in the tub now, she clenched her fingers tightly. Tine had been convinced of his sexual mastery. She didn’t think she would forget, no matter how long she lived, how he had forced her that night. And how incredulous and
