Once More With Feeling Read Online Free

his shirts with starch--he claimed that in a
former life he had been a particularly penitent monk--and he
favored ties that the upwardly mobile dared not wear. Nothing about
Owen Whitfield was surprising, but everything was seductive.
    He caught her staring at him. His eyes
gleamed brighter. "Well, do you like what you see?"
    What she saw was a middle-aged man with the
raw-boned build of his Slavic peasant ancestors and dark hair that
was fast turning silver. The skin around his brown eyes was
crinkled from too many squints and too many smiles, but he would no
more visit a plastic surgeon than live out the last of his days on
a Palm Springs golf course.
    So far Owen had avoided the curses of too
many men his age. His hair was still thick, his waistline trim. He
had yet to consider that his charms might have diminished, and he
was right. He was still so attractive, in fact, that Elisabeth
suspected that even her closest friends might be tempted to have an
affair with him if he crooked his little finger. To her knowledge,
he had never crooked for any of them.
    But he may very well have crooked for
Anna.
    She didn't allow that thought to show. "I've
always liked looking at you. Show me a woman who doesn't."
    He smiled, but didn't deny it. "We should
spend more time together. I've been neglecting you."
    "Dogs and children can be neglected. Not
adults. You're not responsible to me for a certain number of hours
a year."
    "What if I'd like to be?"
    She was anything but flattered. As usual
lately, he had missed the point. "I'd rather not be an entry in
your appointment book." She slid off the bed. "I've got to finish
dressing."
    They kept separate bedrooms for those nights
when he arrived home late and didn't want to disturb her, but more
and more often, even on the rare occasions when he was home, they
slept apart. He had moved his clothes into this room a year ago.
Now there was a bookcase beside the bed packed with Tom Clancy
novels, architectural tomes, and volumes of obscure Polish poetry.
Her clothes--and life--were across the hall.
    He stopped her before she got to the door.
"Let me rephrase. I miss you."
    His brown eyes seemed sincere, but she
wondered how many seconds it would be before his thoughts turned
back to the thousand and one details of a successful man's day and
away from his undemanding wife.
    "I'm delighted," she said. "We'll have to
see what we can do about it."
    He stroked one practiced finger along her
cheekbone to the corner of her mouth. "There'll be time after the
party to make a start. Just don't encourage Grant to stay
around."
    She didn't quite meet his eyes. "I'll boot
him out the door."
    She thought about their exchange as she
stepped into a navy dress with a crisp white Chanel jacket and
later, when she adjusted the downstairs lighting so that it was
subtle enough to complement the women's makeup. Owen was an
enthusiastic, inventive lover, and sex had held their marriage
together in the early days when they were learning to live
together. They had even managed to find time for each other when
Grant was a baby and Owen's future was anything but assured. But if
they made love tonight, it would be the first time in a month.
    At least for her.
    "What shall I do?"
    Owen's words startled her. Elisabeth had
grown so used to his absence that his presence in the house, in her
life, was almost a surprise.
    She continued fiddling with a table lamp and
didn't turn. "There's nothing, really. I thought we'd have coffee
in here after dinner. Be sure nobody bunches up over in that
corner." She waved toward a small, private conversational grouping
of wing chairs at the opposite end of the living room.
    "And how do I stop them?"
    "Open the closest window. Create a
draft."
    He rested his hands on her shoulders. "Is
that one of those things the blue-blooded instinctively know?"
    She couldn't pretend she was something she
was not. As a child Elisabeth had learned the fine art of fitting
into society. She could gracefully