O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [103]
“Please go, Glen,” Amanda said, “and wait for me at the yacht club. This won’t take long.”
He grunted, but Lilly had them moving toward the door.
Amanda’s cobalt-blue fire blazed into Zachary’s green fire. She nodded in the direction of the restaurant and Zach took her wrist hard enough to convey his determination, led her to the restaurant archway, and pushed his way through a waiting line. Miffed grumbles followed them.
“The nerve!”
“Who does he think he is!”
“I’ll see that he is reported.”
Tonyo, an archduke of a maître d’, whisked them in like a magician who had snapped a tablecloth off a fully set table without spilling a drop of water.
He showed them to a booth, quickly curtained them in, and returned to the waiting line and held up his hands. “Poor girl was about to pass out. She’ll be fine. So sorry. Let me send a round of drinks to your table.”
Zach and Amanda snorted in anger.
“Let me go. You’re hurting my wrist,” she demanded.
“Promise that you’ll stay put.”
“You are hurting me.”
“I’ll see you now,” he threatened and pleaded.
“All right, then. I’ll see you.”
Zachary released her. They stared empty-eyed and panting at a magnificently intricate tablecloth holding a king’s array of crystal and silver.
Tonyo buzzed and entered with a bottle of port, poured the glasses uncomfortably, and cleared his throat.
“See to our privacy,” Amanda commanded, “and leave the bottle. I’ll ring when I need you.”
“Yes, Miss Kerr,” he said, and snapped the curtains shut behind him so the brass rings clinked with authority.
Zach bumbled at his glass, starting to realize the import of his behavior. He felt Amanda’s fingertips touching his lips.
“Oh God,” she said softly, “I love you so. What are we going to do?”
He dared look and tears were there. He opened his handkerchief. “Here, now.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “I’ve earned these tears.”
Amanda blew her nose, which ran like a little girl’s who had fallen and scraped her knee hard, and as quickly as she had foundered, she returned.
“I’ve never seen you in officer’s dress blues. You’re beautiful.”
“Those are sad lines under your eyes, Amanda.”
“Yes,” she said, and quickly changed the subject with a reflexive reaction to the stab of a few minutes back. “She is very lovely,” Amanda said unevenly.
“And very kind,” he answered in a whisper. “Her family took me in.”
“I’m certain you prospered from the experience,” Amanda said, to boost her sagging pride.
“She’s only a friend.”
“A little more, I’d say. I suppose you’ll want a complete report on Glen Constable and myself.”
“I don’t care to know anything, ever,” he said.
“Are you that certain?”
“I am certain of how we love each other,” he replied.
“After my letter, taking up with Madame Villiard was not wrong of you. But, almighty God, this summer has hurt.”
Amanda sipped her wine, then he covered her hands with his, and she shivered. “In the garden on that first night when you took my hand, I’d never felt anything like it, till now.”
He brushed her cheeks with kisses, and she rubbed his gold bars. “My Marine. Take me somewhere now, please. I have to be with you, Zach.”
“It won’t take long before the world crashes into this booth. That stupid scene I made was like some dumb Samson pulling the temple down on our heads.”
“The beach tonight or I’ll find a place nearby,” she said.
“Listen up, darling. We can’t do anything around Newport.”
“I don’t care about gossip.”
“Listen up,” he repeated. “I just did a terrible thing out there.”
“But you did it and we are both here together now because you did.”
“I could have ruined my work,” he said. “I could have let Major Ben down, the Corps, and both of us as well. Look at me, Amanda.”
“What’s going on?” she said.
“Amanda, my assignment here will probably be the most important thing ever asked of me, in my life. Do you understand me?”
She sighed heavily, let it set in, then nodded.
“It can’t be interrupted, even by you and me.”
“How long will it take?”
“If I bear down, burn the midnight oil, I can finish it by the