The Great Escape: A Vintage Contemporary Romance

by Thea Harrison

  A hand cupped her slight chin and gently forced her mouth to close, then tilted it up so that he could stare deeply into her bemused eyes. “Dee,” he said kindly, “shut up. I wanted it for you and I bought it, so wear it and like it or I’ll beat you! It’s your birthstone, did you know?”

  Her eyes went as if drawn back to the dazzling jewel in the box. “I guess so,” she murmured abstractedly, simply staring. “But it’s so—so—”

  “Beautiful,” he supplied helpfully, taking the box from her unresisting fingers and extracting the gold chain carefully. “Wonderful, a perfect present, you’ll love it for ever, thank you very much, Mike. You’re welcome, Dee. Turn around and I’ll put it on you. Go on, girl, turn around!”

  Dazedly she complied and soon felt the cool touch of precious metal against her skin, along with the pleasing warmth of his long fingers at the nape of her neck. The necklace settled into place, and she thought she felt something brush her exposed nape, but it was gone so quickly she couldn’t be sure. Her hand went up to the hollow of her throat uncertainly, her eyes winging to him doubtfully.

  “Just as beautiful as I’d thought it would be,” he murmured, smiling down at her. She thought fleetingly that no dead jewel, no matter how brilliant, could match the brilliant warmth of those bright eyes. His expression altered as he saw the troubled depths in her own eyes and he said with a quick harshness, “Cut it out, will you, for heaven’s sake? I have money too, and I’m not a damned pauper, even if I haven’t as much as you! It caught my eye and I bought it, and that’s all there is to it! If you don’t want it, then you can take it back yourself and keep the refund.” And his eyes shuttered down as he turned away, as if bored with the whole scene.

  Distressed, she moved over and laid a hand on his stiff arm. “Mike, that wasn’t what I was thinking, really! It’s just such a—a special gift, a really special one, and—and I don’t know how to thank you for it.” She let her hand fall hopelessly to her side. He was really offended this time. She said in a small voice, “I really am overwhelmed.”

  As she watched, his rigid stance relaxed and the tenseness of his jaw loosened. He sighed, impatiently, and shook his head, then he smiled ruefully at her. “I guess we’re both a bit touchy today. Do you really like it?”

  Her instant glowing smile and sparkling eyes told him so, even before her swift, “Oh, yes, I do! Thank you so much.” And she leaned on her toes to give him a feathery kiss on his lean cheek.

  Suddenly he was rigid again, she felt, as her hand rested on his shoulder for balance, then he was taking her roughly into his arms, his mouth running along her cheek and blindly seeking her lips, and they were kissing starvingly, desperately, straining to each other. Dee touched his face with both hands, emitting a slight, inarticulate moan deep in her throat and…

  …The front doorbell sounded with a melodious, infuriating chime.

  She was released instantly as Mike’s dark head shot up, and he put her from him almost absentmindedly as the rather blind look in his eyes gradually dispelled into the realisation of his surroundings. She saw that look fade away, and could have screamed in frustration. He had broken down right then, had been out of control, and now he was back into the awareness of whatever devil was plaguing him, keeping him away from her.

  Well, she thought, drawing in a deep, steadying breath, no matter. There was still the whole rest of the day, and he was with her now. It would have to be enough.

  He went obligingly to answer the door for her as she suddenly flew into a panic and sped to the kitchen to make sure everything was running smoothly for Mary, dithering and delaying until the other woman finally shooed her away, in a frenzy of impatient nervousness herself. Dee helped carry in a few trays of refreshments to sit on the sideboard as Mary took care of the rest and then she went, outwardly collected, to meet the strangers who were arriving with an onslaught of punctuality.

  Mr. Whittaker was already there, his white head gleaming and his distinguished face sending her a look of encouragement and welcoming smile. He came forward to take her by the hand and begin the introductions to the well dressed men and women in the room, eleven the final total.

  Their names and faces blurred together in Dee’s mind, as will happen when one meets so many new people, but she recognised the names and the occupations that she and Mr. Whittaker had so painstakingly sought out. She glanced nervously over her shoulder at Mike as he stood by a large, unlit fireplace. He wore an assessing, alert expression, his eyes running around the room and collecting data, but as yet coming up with no answers. He looked her way and lifted a dark eyebrow as the elderly solicitor finished the introductions. It was a strange assortment of people. There was a representative from the Allied Corporation, the company that Dee held the majority of stocks in, and there was a woman representative from the American Cancer Society. Every person represented either the head of a certain organisation or company, and none of the different areas of business and enterprise seemed to have anything in common with the other. And then of course there was Mike and Mr. Whittaker, and Mary would be joining the group shortly.

  The group was soon chatting politely to one another and to her, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember what was said. Mary soon joined the group and was promptly introduced all around, and if there were a few discreet eyebrows lifted at her presence in the group, everyone was too polite to say anything about it.

  In the painful process of mingling and being generally polite to people she didn’t personally know or give a hoot about, Dee found herself temporarily alone and was about to make her way to the sideboard for something to quench her parched throat when a voice drawled behind her, “Here. I thought you were looking a bit dazed and wilted. This should help.” Mike pressed a glass of light wine into her hand and she accepted it thankfully. He continued smoothly, “I’m playing bartender to the group.”

  She started. “Oh, I forgot! I meant to ask you but got so flustered it just went right out of my head. Thank you. And you’re right—I needed this.” She glanced around and then gulped unobtrusively at the beverage, aware of the alert, watching man beside her.

  “Hell of a birthday party you invited me to,” he said conversationally, keeping his voice low enough so that no one else could hear. “That was what you had said it was to be, a birthday party, or did I hear you wrong on the phone?”

  She started to feel uncomfortable. He was watching her so sternly and so strangely near to hostility that she was beginning to feel distinctly ill at ease. The fact that his puzzled suspicion was warranted didn’t help. “Yes, well,” she coughed, “I thought it was about time to meet some people that—that my parents knew some years back, and—”

  “Come off it, sweetheart,” he said, his anger pulsing beneath the surface politeness. “You’re cooking up something in that pretty little head of yours, and I’ve learned to be very wary when you do that. And for some unfathomable reason, it has something to do with me. I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t like that feeling. It makes me feel uncomfortable. What the hell is going on?”

  Dee decided that the best strategy at the moment would be a fast, prudently surreptitious retreat, and said quickly, “Now is this the way to mingle socially? Come on, Mike, I’m counting on you to help me make the guests feel comfortable…” She took a few nimble steps back as out of the corner of her eye she saw the woman from the Cancer Society come their way, an appreciative gleam in her eye as she gazed at Mike. He was neatly caught as he sent Dee a brief, furious glance before turning his attention to the woman beside him.

  It was time. She couldn’t take much more of this nervous excitement, and she signalled to Mr. Whittaker with her eyes. He caught the look, nodded to her reassuringly, and stepped into an open space to gain everyone’s attention.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he started out formally, clearing his throat. “We are very pleased that you were all able to make it here today, and we know you must all be feeling justifiably mystified at the reas
on why you were all invited. If you all would be so kind as to have a seat at the table over here…” An ensuing quiet scuffle arose at that as everyone slowly filed over obligingly to sit down at the huge mahogany table. Dee moved over to the end seat and sat down silently, putting her wine glass in front of her. Her head turned as she looked to see where Mike was heading, and she saw him start her way, still with that stern expression on his face. He was forestalled by something the woman said to him, and by the time he had turned around again, the president of the board of directors at Allied had seated himself at her left while a man whom she couldn’t remember seated himself at her right. She noted that Mike had finally located a spot about halfway down the table, then she turned her attention to Mr. Whittaker, who had taken up the position at the head of the table.

  “…thank you very much.” He paused and cleared his throat again, then looked towards Dee. Very much aware of the close attention that she was receiving from Mike and, incidentally, everyone else in the room, she nodded slightly and the older man began. “You have all met your hostess, Deirdre Janson, the daughter of the late millionaire Charles Janson. He was the man who started Allied Corporation and built up the business into the multi-million-dollar operation it is today. What most of you do not know is that today is Miss Janson’s eighteenth birthday and the day that she legally comes into the bulk of her inheritance.”

  A buzz of conversation murmured around the room and Dee responded somehow to the expressed good wishes of various people, but she wasn’t really paying attention to them. Pale and tense, she kept her eyes on Mike as he shot her a narrowed, keen glance. She kept her eyes on him.

  Mr. Whittaker quietly continued, “Several weeks ago, Deirdre asked me to look into the various organisations that you all represent here today and to collect information on each one’s goal and financial status…” She could see a muscle bunch in Mike’s jaw. He was as tense, then, as she was. “…which I was quite willing to comply with. Then, after learning what I had to tell her about you all, she requested something of me that was so incredible, I at first did not credit her with being totally serious. After many hours of discussion, though I realized that she was utterly sincere and adamant, so I reluctantly started the rather lengthy procedures that managing such a huge estate entails. Thus, on the date of her legal acquisition of her inheritance, she is able with little delay to dispense with her fortune as she sees fit.” He put on a pair of gold-rimmed eye-glasses, and while he rummaged around in his coat pockets, the room was so still one could have heard a pin drop. Dee was still watching Mike and saw him turn rigidly white. Mr. Whittaker asked gently, “Would you like to carry on, my dear?”

  She started as if coming out of a trance and murmured, “No, thank you.”

  “Very well,” and he pulled out a sheet of white paper and studied it for a moment before continuing. “Without further preamble, here are the final figures that Miss Janson has decided to contribute to you. To the American Cancer Society, she wishes to contribute the sum of five million dollars, to be used specifically for research purposes and the relief of the huge medical costs for cancer-stricken families. To the Blue Cross, she wishes to contribute the sum of four million dollars, to be used as the administration sees fit. To the National Aeronautic Space Administration, she wishes to contribute the sum of four million dollars, to be specifically used for space exploration and research. To the…” And so the list went, as Mr. Whittaker’s dry, unemotional voice read the distribution of the source of all Dee’s former dismay. She didn’t listen, she’d heard it all before, time and time again, they’d thrashed out the exact sums of the money she was handing away so freely. She was experiencing at the moment a huge relief to be free of the heavy burden her inheritance had been, and a terrified reaction to Mike’s silent, white, rock-carven face and leaping eyes. She didn’t even hear the incredulous gasps from everyone else or the ejaculations of astonishment her bombshell had induced.

  Mr. Whittaker was finishing. “…and finally, the bulk of the rest of the inheritance, which is around six million dollars, is to go to the workers at Allied Corporation, to be specifically used for better insurance coverage and retirement benefits, and safety procedures. Miss Janson has expressed the wish to me that on her twenty-first birthday she wishes to sign over all her controlling stock to the workers of Allied Corporation on the stipulation that the controlling power of the stock shares is to be used by the board of directors only, while the profits are to be put back into the company to benefit the workers and the business. Miss Janson is keeping enough money for the complete and permanent upkeep of this house, together with a pension plan for her housekeeper, Mary Janusinski, and enough money to send her through college, but it’s a mere fraction of the money she’s just handed to you all on a silver platter. In essence, ladies and gentlemen, she’s just given away twenty-three million dollars.” And in the amazed and delighted uproar that followed these words, no one heard him say softly as he sat heavily down, “And a more lunatic and wonderful act I’ve yet to see!”

  Dee was swamped with the effusive thanks and delighted exclamations. She felt bowled over with the concerted rush everyone made to shake her hand, and it was a few minutes before she could look up to see where Mike was. He wasn’t in his seat, so her eyes flew around the room and she found him casually pouring a drink on the other side of the room and handing it gallantly to the woman from the Cancer Society. His face was bland and calm and so utterly normal that at first she felt a sharp disappointment. Then he looked up and glanced her way, and she caught the banked-down emotion in those violently leaping expressive eyes. Still, it was impossible to gauge the extent or exact nature of his reaction, and she felt suddenly, totally flat.

  After an eternity of chatter and the nightmare of bearing patiently with everyone’s bubbling gratitude, she finally felt that she could take the chance to sneak away for a breath of fresh air.

  A smiling, quick glance around the room placed everyone’s position in her mind, and a minute or so of alert scrutiny presented a moment when everyone, for some reason or another, was looking away from the direction of the door. Dee nimbly made her escape. Out in the hall she sent one brief, longing glance towards the closed front door, imagining momentarily with a sharp pang the feeling of utter freedom and flight, and the exhilarating excitement of the chase. She smiled, touched the necklace that caressed the hollow of her slim throat, and sedately walked into the small family room, towards the back of the house. She checked her watch and guessed five minutes.

  Mike made it there in three.

  Her head jerked swiftly to the door as she heard the sound of approaching footsteps. They paused outside the closed door and then the knob was turned and the door opened silently. He slipped through quietly, checking the hall before shutting the door behind him. Then, as he turned to face her, sitting with a credible appearance of calm in a high-backed armchair, his hand went to the door and locked it deliberately.

  That made her heart start to thump with surprise and consternated uncertainty. With lifted golden eyebrows, she watched him lean casually against the door, one foot kicked over the other, hands folded across his chest, and an implacable, unfathomable look on his utterly serious face. His jaw was tight, she could see. A muscle bunched spasmodically and then relaxed. “They’re beginning to wonder where you are,” he commented off-handedly.

  Dee expelled a sudden, explosive breath and the pressure of the moment made her answer snappily, “So what? I’m entitled to my privacy, like everyone else. They were all smothering me!” And she caught her breath at the controlled frustration in her voice.

  He didn’t move and his expression didn’t shift or change. And with that flat, unemotional voice that gave her absolutely no hint as to what his feelings were, he asked her, “Why did you do it?”

  She just looked at him, large eyes black with dilated strain, darkly sparkling against the perfect background of her golden hair and pale skin. She swallowed, and the glittering gem at her throat
winked. “I didn’t want the money.”

  One brow lifted, sardonically, and he remained silent, his expression extremely skeptical, goading. She resented that look, and she retorted, “Don’t look at me that way, damn it! I’ve no earthly reason to lie to you or anyone else about it! It was a dead weight around my neck, always present, always constricting, always the source of my unhappiness—it’s caused me nothing but grief and pain and trouble—ever since my parents died. It’s been the mire that bogged me down so that I couldn’t be free!”

  Something quivered across his face and flickered away, so fast she couldn’t define it. He seemed to hesitate and search for words, then he asked her carefully, “Why is it always the source of your unhappiness? Why was it making you unhappy now? You’d everything ahead of you, the freedom and respect from your guardian, the immense freedom of being wealthy enough to do whatever you wanted…what’s made you unhappy now?”

  As realisation hit her of what she had just given away, she flinched physically and then instinctively retreated into a shell of uncommunicative silence, simply sliding away into herself, quivering in her chair like a caught and frightened rabbit. And even while she reacted so involuntarily she berated herself for not being able to take that final, declarative step.

  Across the room she heard a violent exclamation, but she didn’t catch what was said—and then suddenly Mike was right on the floor in front of her chair, reaching convulsively for her trembling hands. But everything about Dee was trembling, and not just her hands: her shoulders, her mouth, her whole body quivered. Then he was looking up at her, so dear and familiar and strong, wonderfully, masculinely strong, and she couldn’t stop herself from falling forward, right into his arms. They closed around her with an eager swiftness, crushing her tight against him, and as her face instinctively burrowed into the front of his shirt, she felt his face come down with a great sigh and nestle in her hair.