LITMIR.BIZ

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his teeth. “Jill, wait for me at the door, will you?”

      “If you say so. My, she does look violent, doesn’t she?” Jill chided, but she walked away quickly just the same.

      “Get a grip on yourself!” Simon shot at Tira under his breath. “Don’t you see the reporters staring at you?”

      “I don’t give a damn about the reporters,” she flashed at him. “If she comes near me again, I swear I’ll empty the punch bowl over her vicious little head!”

      He let go of her wrist and something kindled in his pale eyes as he looked at her animated face. “That’s more like you,” he said in a deep, soft tone.

      Tira flushed, aware that Lillian was quietly deserting her, stranding her with Simon.

      “Why did you come?” she asked furiously.

      “So the gossips wouldn’t have a field day speculating about why I didn’t,” he explained. “It wouldn’t have done either of us much good, considering what’s been in print already.”

      She lifted her face, staring at him with cold eyes at the reference to things she only wanted to forget. “You’ve done your duty,” she said. “You might as well go. And take the Wicked Witch of the West with you,” she added spitefully.

      “Jealous?” he asked in a sensuous tone.

      Her face hardened. “I once asked you the same question. You can give yourself the same answer that you gave me. Like hell I’m jealous!”

      He was watching her curiously, his eyes acutely alive in a strangely taciturn face. “You’ve lost weight,” he remarked. “And you look more like a widow than a celebrity tonight. Why wear black?”

      “I’ve decided that you were right. I should have mourned my husband. So now I’m in mourning,” she said icily and with an arctic smile. “I expect to be in mourning for him until I die, and I’ll never look at a man again. Doesn’t that make you happy?”

      He frowned slightly. “Tira…”

      “Tira!”

      The sound of a familiar voice turned them both around. Harry Beck, Tira’s father-in-law, came forward, smiling, to embrace Tira. He turned to shake Simon’s hand. “Great to see you both!” he said enthusiastically. “Dollface, you’ve outdone yourself,” he told Tira, nodding toward two nearby sculptures. “I always knew you were talented, but this is sheer genius!”

      Simon looked puzzled by Harry’s honest enthusiasm for Tira’s work, by his lack of hostility. She’d killed his only son, didn’t he care?

      “I’m glad to see you, Simon,” Harry added with a smile. “It’s been a long time.”

      “Simon was just leaving. Weren’t you?” Tira added meaningfully.

      “Someone’s motioning to you,” Harry noted, indicating Lillian frantically waving from across the room.

      “It’s Lillian. Will you excuse me?” Tira asked, smiling at Harry. “I won’t be a minute.” Simon, she ignored entirely.

      The two men watched her go.

      “I’m glad to see her looking so much better,” Harry said on a sigh, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I’ve been worried since she went to the hospital.”

      “Do you really care what happens to her?” Simon asked curiously.

      Harry was surprised. “Why wouldn’t I be? She was my daughter-in-law. I’ve always been fond of her.”

      “She divorced John a month after they married and let him go off to work on a drill rig in the ocean,” Simon returned. “He died there.”

      Harry stared at him blankly. “But that wasn’t her fault.”

      “Wasn’t it?”

      “Why are you so bitter?” Harry wanted to know. “For God’s sake, you can’t think she didn’t try to change him? He should have told her the truth before he married her, not let her find it out that way!”

      Simon was puzzled. “Find what out?”

      Jill glared at Simon, but he made a motion for her to wait another minute and turned back to Harry. “Find what out?” he repeated curtly.

      “That John was homosexual, of course,” Harry said, puzzled.

      The blood drained out of Simon’s face. He stared down at the older man with dawning comprehension.

      “She didn’t tell you?” Harry asked gently. He sighed and shook his head. “That’s like her, though. She wanted to preserve your illusions about John, even if it meant sacrificing your respect for her. She couldn’t tell you, I guess. I can’t blame her. If he’d only been able to accept what he was…but he couldn’t. He tried so hard to be what he thought I wanted. And he never seemed to understand that I’d have loved him regardless of how he saw his place in the world.”

      Simon turned away, his eyes finding Tira across the room. She wouldn’t meet his gaze. She turned her back. He felt the pain right through his body.

      “Dear God!” he growled when he realized what he’d done.

      “Don’t look like that,” Harry said gently. “John made his own choice. It was nobody’s fault. Maybe it was mine. I should have seen that he was distraught and done something.”

      Simon let out a breath. He was sick right to his soul. What a fool he’d been.

      “She should have told you,” Harry was saying. “You’re a grown man. You don’t need to be protected from the truth. She was always like that, even with John, trying to protect him. She’d have gone on with the marriage if he hadn’t insisted on a divorce.”

      “I thought…she got the divorce.”

      “He got it, in her name, and cited mental cruelty.” He shrugged. “I don’t think he considered how it might look to an outsider. It made things worse for him. He only did it to save her reputation. He thought it would hurt her publicly if he made it look like she was at fault.” He glanced at Simon. “That was right after your wreck and she was trying to take care of you. He thought it might appear as if she was having an affair with you and he found out. It might have damaged both of you in the public eye.”

      His teeth clenched. “I never touched her.”

      “Neither did John,” Harry murmured heavily. “He couldn’t. He cried in my arms about it, just before he saw an attorney. He wanted to love her. He did, in his way. But it wasn’t in a conventional way at all.”

      Simon pushed back a strand of dark, wavy hair that had fallen on his brow. He was sweating because the gallery was overheated.

      “Are you all right?” Harry asked with concern.

      “I’m fine.” He wasn’t. He’d never be all right again. He glanced toward Tira with anguish in every line of his face. But she wouldn’t even look at him.

      Jill, sensing some problem, came back to join him, sliding her hand into his arm. “Aren’t you ready? We’ll miss the curtain.”

      “I’m ready,” he said. He looked down at her and realized that here was one more strike against him. He was giving aid and comfort to Tira’s worst enemy in the city. He’d done it deliberately, of course, to make her even more uncomfortable. But that was before he knew the whole truth. Now he felt guilty.

      “Hello. I’m Jill Sinclair. Have we met?” she asked Harry, smiling.

      “No, we haven’t. I’m—”

      “We have to go,” Simon said abruptly. He didn’t want to add any more weapons to Jill’s already full arsenal by letting Harry tell her about John, too. “See you, Harry.”

      “Sure. Good night.”

      “Who

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