Free Window on Yesterday by Joan Hohl Page B

she didn’t particularly want to, because Alycia had convinced herself that the kind of do-or-die, love-ever-after love that Sean was referring to simply did not exist. Nervous, uncomfortable, she was unaware of her fingers twisting the gold chain around her wrist. She started when Sean’s hand covered hers, stilling her agitated action.
    “Don’t let it throw you,” he said gently.
    Alycia tried to smile. “I—I...” Her shoulders moved in an I-give-up shrug. “I find it hard to believe that a man of your obvious intelligence ...” She shrugged again as her voice faltered.
    “That a man of my intelligence would hold out for the real thing?” Sean prompted.
    “Yes.” Alycia sighed. “I have a problem with ‘the real thing.’“ Her soft lips curved into a cynical smile. “To be honest, I have a problem with the word ‘love.’“
    Sean’s long fingers circled her wrist, chaining her more effectively than the delicate gold links. “And an even bigger problem with the concept of love at first sight?” he suggested softly.
    Alycia shuddered. “I thought it was love at first sight when ...” Her lips tightened in reaction to the old memory that retained the power to hurt and humiliate. “It wasn’t love at all.”
    “And whatever it was made you wary and afraid to trust.” Holding her gaze with his shadowed blue eyes, Sean slid his fingers under the loose-fitting chain, binding them together in a way that was both frightening and exhilarating to Alycia.
    Unable at that instant to speak, barely able to breathe, Alycia nodded.
    Sean nodded also, but his head movement conveyed firm determination, not uncertainty. His fingertips stroked the sensitive skin over her hammering pulse. A tender smile curved his lips. “I guess I’ll have to teach you the reality of trust and love” he murmured. “I have no choice, for you see, my darling, I’m very much afraid that you are the one woman I cannot live without”
    * * * *
    Alycia was still in a state of bemused shock a half-hour later. Shaken, stunned, while at the same time excited by Sean’s unexpected declaration, she had responded like a sleepwalker when he led her from the dining room to the cocktail lounge.
    The dimly lit room was crowded, but Alycia hadn’t noticed. Distracted and confused, all she was aware of was Sean’s tall body beside her, his guiding hand at her spine, and the echo of his voice bouncing off the walls of her mind.
    She had sat down automatically when he pulled a chair away from a tiny candlelit table. Her nostrils flared delicately as she caught the combined scents of candle wax and open-grill-steak. She had risen without demur when Sean got up to stand by her chair, hand extended, when the pianist caressed the keys into a romantic ballad and sang the words of love in a low seductive voice. They had remained on the small dance floor since then.
    Sean had scrupulously adhered to his promise of no pressure. He didn’t attempt to draw Alycia into an intimate dancing embrace. He didn’t stroke her spine or murmur tantalizing words into her ear. And yet the music swirling around them seemed to encase them in a realm of their very own, separate and apart from the other couples moving as one around them.
    Thought suspended, her emotions running perilously close to the surface, her gaze entangled in the infinite blue of Sean’s eyes, Alycia swayed to the rhythm of falling in love.
    The mood was shattered when, in a sudden change of pace, the pianist swept his hands over the keys, pounding out a ragtime beat.
    Alycia blinked.
    Sean smiled and led her back to the tiny table.
    They had ordered wine, and at the moment the waitress placed the stemmed glasses on the table, the pianist announced that there would be a short break in the music. The dancers settled at their respective tables, and their muted conversation became an unobtrusive background murmur.
    “Tell me about yourself.”
    Though Sean’s voice was pitched low, Alycia