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as she sat at her desk, she resisted the impulse to take out her compact to see how she looked. For she knew that in her current mood, she would think she looked terrible no matter what the reality was. She would feel her hair was too straight, her lips were too full, that her skin looked too pale next to green silk. And she didn't need to be any more ill at ease than she already was.
    When the intercom on her desk buzzed, she jumped, and a few moments later Linda was ushering Ben into the office. He looked handsomer than Kate remembered, with his warm, smiling eyes and wonderfully relaxed and rugged air.
    He glanced at Kate, then thanked Linda and shut the door. When he turned to Kate, he smiled. She thought he looked magnificent. "Good to see you," he said. "And so soon."
    "Listen. It wasn't an easy fight. If I hadn't been almost obnoxiously persistent, the account would have gone to someone else."
    He pursed his lips and looked at her thoughtfully. "I'm sure you were persistent. Obnoxious I doubt. But I'm sorry to hear you had trouble," he said as he put his briefcase and a paper bag down on the conference table. "What was the problem?"
    "Oh, everything," she said, coming over to where he stood. "I'd say that the objections were more politically based than anything else." 1
    "That's right," he said. "I forgot you've just been pro moted. Well. I promise," he said, stepping forward and putting his hands at her waist. "I promise that you'll never be sorry you decided on Blake-Canfield."«
    Fighting with herself, she reached down and took his hands from her waist. "Please," she said quietly, looking into his eyes and resisting their liquid softness. "Just— let's back up a little bit — for the moment."
    He looked at her questioningly and she turned away, sitting down before she began to speak again. "I know," she began slowly, as he pulled out a chair and sat down beside her, "that I wasn't exactly cold to you the other day." She glanced at him then: He looked very serious, and she went on. "I don't like to give double messages. It's a habit of mine, I'm afraid. But in the end, it doesn't get anyone anywhere. So I want to be straightforward with you, Ben. Let's just agree — for now—that we'll slow down, and back off a bit."
    He smiled. " 'We.' That's a nice way of putting it."
    She shrugged. "It's true. Why should I be naive and pretend I have nothing to do with what's happening be tween us— that I'm an innocent who doesn't know what's going on?"
    "Many women do just that."
    "Well, I used to. But not anymore."
    He looked into her eyes. "Have you made any deci sions? About— what was his name — Kurt?"
    She nodded, trying to read his tone, wondering whether he was really as concerned or caring as he sounded. How could he be, when he didn't even know her? "Look," she said. "Your asking me that is just the kind of thing I'm talking about. Let's just forget girl friends, boyfriends, past loves, future loves, and concentrate on trying to get some work done."
    For a moment the amber of his eyes flashed into gold reflecting his deepening interest. They held her in thrall, telling her she was making a foolish mistake by protesting. And she wondered. For when she gazed into those eyes, she imagined them as they would be if she were in Ben's arms, his lips ready to melt with hers, his gaze as smooth and strong as silk.
    As he looked at her, saying nothing, she resisted the impulse to tell him to forget what she had said; she fought against her natural desire once again to touch him, if only for a moment; she held herself — body and mind, impulse and words — in check.
    And then he spoke. "I'm not going to sit here as we work together in the coming weeks and pretend that I'm not curious about you. Nor am I going to sit here and pretend I'm not interested. What if we both pretended — and we parted, in the end, never knowing what we might have meant to each other?"
    She smiled. "That's a point. But really—I don't know you,