Free Prizes by Erich Segal Page B

Doctor?”
    Adam turned and gave vent to the feelings of frustration that had seized him once again since he had entered her apartment.
    “I’m confused, Toni,” he said candidly. “I mean, you give off all kinds of different signals. On the one hand you have this incredible ability to make me feel like I’m the only man in the world. And yet we both know you have this commitment.”
    “To my job, Adam. To the Department of Justice. You, if anyone, should appreciate that.”
    “You mean your employer, don’t you?”
    Toni did not disguise her irritation.
    “If you don’t mind, I run my own show. Believe it or not, I employ two paralegals and two secretaries. How I spend my spare time is none of your business. I never asked what kind of involvements you have back in Boston.”
    “They’re not married women, I assure you,” he retorted.
    “Well, good for you, Adam.” She gave a sarcastic laugh. “You live in a town where the ratio of women to men isn’t five to one. In case you haven’t noticed, this village is not only our nation’s capital—it’s a political harem.”
    She paused for a moment and then commented, “Did you come all the way down from Boston just to bicker? You must be trying very hard not to like me.”
    “You’re right,” he admitted. “In my game I’d call it an ‘autoimmune reaction.’ ”
    Suddenly she put her hand gently on the back of hisneck and whispered, “It’s all over with him, Adam. It’s been over since the minute I got back from being with you in Boston. I was going to tell you but when Max died it hardly seemed the moment. I’d discovered the difference between a man wanting you and
needing
you. I hope it doesn’t sound presumptuous, but I honestly felt I made a difference in your life.”
    “You did. You do. I only wish you’d told me sooner.”
    “Well, for once, the timing was right. Have I changed anything?” she asked hopefully.
    “Yeah,” he smiled. “I’d say it sort of changes everything.”
    The rest of that weekend was a kind of prologue to commitment. Toni finally felt secure enough to open her psyche as well as her heart.
    Her childhood had been antithetical to his at almost every point. While he had climbed above his father by mounting the diving platform, she had viewed the world from the height of the pedestal on which Tom Hartnell had placed her.
    He had divorced her mother and married twice more thereafter—being sure to synchronize one of his nuptials with his ambassadorship to Great Britain. He had two sons, but neither had the fire of his daughter Toni.
    Buried somewhere in the Levittown of middle management at the Bank of America, there was even a Thomas Hartnell II. He had sorely disappointed his namesake by opting for the quiet life. Young Norton Hartnell was still more retiring than Tom Junior and had chosen an even quieter existence—teaching English as a second language in a Texas hamlet.
    Understandably, Toni—or “Skipper” as her ex-Navy father loved to call her—was far and away his “favorite son.”
    Adam realized that her predilection for mature men was an inevitable continuation of her deep attachment to the Boss.
    He understood what he was up against, but he was man enough to confess his qualms. “Look, Toni. Nobody knows better than I how close you are to your father. Do you think your relationship with him would allow you to forge another?”
    “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Why don’t we try taking things one day at a time?”
    “Well,” he answered with a smile, “I was working within the parameters of ‘the time being’ and ‘forever after.’ Does that seem too onerous?”
    “To be honest,” she replied, “I can’t even imagine being lucky in love.”
    “Actually, neither can I—which gives us yet another thing in common,” he confessed. “Why don’t we go on a honeymoon this summer? Take a house on Cape Cod maybe. Then, if we like it, we can get married.”
    “That’s a novel