by Janet Dailey
"Hear, hear," one of the men murmured in agreement, and lifted his glass in a silent toast to her successful performance.
"Yes, to a very triumphant performance by our own Jersey Lily." A second man made it a verbal salute.
"In case you men haven't noticed it, your star is a tiger lily — a wild, exotic flower," Dane remarked with an admiring glance running warmly over the titian-haired entertainer.
Pet could almost see the reporter making a mental note of the phrase. She was certain it would show up somewhere in the postperformance publicity.
"You know all the right things to say to make a woman feel special, Dane," Ruby purred, and let her hand glide along his arm to curl her fingers through his. "I should be upset with you for bringing a blond to my private party, but here I am — putty in your hands."
"Never putty," he denied, and lifted her fingers to his mouth with continental ease; "Rare blue clay, maybe."
Her faint laugh was a low, throaty sound. "I never know whether to believe you. I guess that's part of your dangerous charm," the star suggested. For once, Pet was in total agreement with the red-haired performer, regarding her assessment of Dang Kingston.
Ruby slipped her hand out of the loose clasp of his fingers. "But I really must circulate, darling. You're making me neglect my guests. Be sure to introduce … Miss Wallis around."
"I will," he replied smoothly.
Pet had the distinct impression that Ruby Gale had given him permission to escort her. It would have proved more bolstering to her self-esteem if the star had resented Dane's accompanying her. This way the woman obviously didn't regard her as representing a serious threat.
The three men introduced themselves, but Pet didn't make an effort to remember their names. Dane chatted with them a few minutes, then took Pet by the arm to wander to another group. The procedure was repeated several times, and Pet realized that Dane was doing his own brand of circulating, advertising his product and making himself known to those who were important. A necessary part of any business was socializing.
But she had a great deal of difficulty relaxing in his company. She could talk quite naturally with others, yet could manage only a stiff nod or some stilted reply when Dane addressed a remark to her. Tension began drumming at her temples, demanding a respite from the constant strain of his presence.
A particularly garrulous guest had trapped Dane into a conversation about the merits of the present television programming, and Pet took the opportunity to touch his arm lightly to briefly claim his attention.
"Excuse me, I'm going to freshen my lipstick. I'll only be a few moments," she murmured as his gaze wandered over her mouth to assess the need.
Without waiting for his permission, Pet moved away. The brunette secretary whom Dane had addressed as Clancy showed her where the ladies' powder room was located in the suite, and Pet sank onto the strawberry velvet stool in front of the lighted mirror and gazed at her reflection.
A pair of plain gold studs gleamed on the lobes of her ears. The sides of her long hair were pulled high on the crown of her head and secured with a wide gold barrette. Strong, mat-smooth features were sculpted in clean, pure lines of classical symmetry rather than prettiness. With its jade eyes, it was an arresting face that would wear well.
Pet saw the absence of raw sensuality and animation. Noting the pallor of her lips, she removed the tube of gloss from her bag and outlined her mouth with the burgundy stick. She ran a comb through the ends of her hair and flipped it down the center of her back. With a sigh she accepted the fact that her cool blond sophistication was no competition for the earthy appeal of the auburn temptress.
Entering the spacious main room of the suite, she spied Dane with a state politician, and the independent streak in her asserted itself. Instead of making her way to his side, she wandered over to the hors d'oeuvres table, sampled some caviar, Which she loved, and stuffed mushroom buttons, then accepted another glass of champagne.
"It's quite an affair, isn't it?" a cynical male voice remarked to the right of her elbow.
Turning her head, Pet glanced down at the man easily three inches shorter than she was. She resisted the age-old impulse to hunch her shoulders, an impossibility with the thin shoulder pads under her peach silk blouse. The man was familiar, but it was second before she remembered he was one of the three who had been talking to Ruby Gale when she and Dane had joined them. At the time she had decided he was a reporter.
"Yes, it is." She continued to stand straight and tall.
"Petra Wallis, isn't it?" he remembered her name.
"Either you have an excellent memory or else you know everyone else here," Pet replied with a wry look over the rim of her champagne glass.
"It's a combination," he admitted. "I know most of the people who are here, remembering names is part of my trade, and a man would he a fool to forget yours."
He smiled for the first time without some inner cynicism. In his late thirties, he wasn't really an unattractive man without that expression of bored superiority. Plain brown hair and shrewd brown eyes went with his unassuming features. As his gaze made a thorough study of her, it didn't contain the suggestive stripping quality that he had subjected her to before. Pet didn't feel any of the initial hostility he had generated in their earlier meeting.
"I know you've probably forgotten. The name is Nick Brewster." He wasn't offended that she had.
"You're with the newspaper, right?" She wasn't sure if she had been told or if it was only a guess.
"Yeah, I'm doing a feature article on the 'Tiger Lily' for the entertainment section. I'll probably send it around — syndicate it to a few other papers." He shrugged to. hide the boasting tone, then studied her again. "You might have given me an idea on a different angle."
"Me?" Pet was startled.
"Yeah. The star through the eyes of a television camera." He made an imaginary frame with his hands.
"I'm not sure that I understand what you mean." She shook her head, vaguely confused.
"I'd be writing it from your viewpoint," the journalist explained. "What Ruby Gale is like to work with, that kind of thing. You've seen her in rehearsal and in concert. How is she different?"
"That's easy. Before an audience she's electric. When she's rehearsing, she's concentrating on technique, delivery, the routine." Pet didn't see how that was particularly interesting or new.
"But what about her temperament? Is she congenial to work with? Demanding?"
She began to see where his questions were leading. "Naturally she's demanding — of herself and everyone else."
"Come on, Miss Wallis, you can tell me." The reporter eyed her with a mocking yet confiding look. "It's common knowledge that she can be a temperamental bitch, throwing tantrums, walking off the stage. From some of the things I've overheard, this last session hasn't been without its problems."
"Of course we've had some problems," Pet admitted. "But I haven't seen any evidence of this temper you're describing."
He raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Dane must have her eating out of his hand!" When Pet showed signs of becoming aloof, he chided her, "Everyone knows that the two of them are having an affair. They aren't trying to hide it, even if he did drag you here."
"I wouldn't presume to discuss Mr. Kingston's private life with you, even if I were privy to any of that kind of information — which I'm not," she retorted. "I'm an employee, nothing more."
"Such loyalty!" he mocked her, his gaze sliding sideways. "It should be rewarded, Mr. Kingston. But I forgot," he pretended as Pet turned to find Dane standing near her elbow, "this invitation to the party was by way of a reward."
"You should ask who's being rewarded, Mr. Brewster." Dane smiled pleasantly and laced his fingers through hers. "Maybe the pleasure of Miss Wallis's company is my compensation for a week of hard work and long hours."
"I wouldn't be surprised," the reporter laughed. "Some people can have their cake and eat it, too."
"Then you won't mind if I don't share. E
xcuse us."
Dane led Pet away. The smile faded from his expression, if it had ever really been there at all, and his dark gaze was sharp as it examined her. "I'm sorry. I hope Brewster didn't subject you to too much of his dirty digging."
"He didn't." She was curt as she pulled her hand free from him. She disliked being used as a red herring. "Not that it matters. I'm not in the habit of airing other people's dirty linen, even if I had possession of it — which I don't."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Impatience clipped his voice.
"It means that I didn't have any 'dirt' to give him," Pet shrugged with feigned indifference and refused to meet his gaze.
"He did upset you," he concluded grimly.
"He didn't," she insisted. If she was upset, it was because of the round bed with the rose canopy, Dane's insincere praise of her skill, the nonthreat she was to Ruby Gale and the farcical invitation to this party. "I have been around television and news reporters before. I didn't need to be rescued."
"I can't win with you, can I?" Dane sighed with thinly disguised anger. "I try to do a good deed and I'm accused of meddling again."
"Is that my fault?" Pet countered defensively.
"I had hoped for a pleasant evening, not another one of our verbal matches of word slinging." The reply was underlined with tautness.
On that, Pet agreed. "Perhaps we're both tired. It's been a long, tension-filled evening in many respects." She was thinking of more than the taping.
"Yes." But there was a grim reluctance in his acceptance of her explanation. "We'd better make our apologies to Ruby and leave."
Without waiting for her reply, he cupped a hand under her elbow and guided her to the corner of the room where the flame-haired woman was flirting with one of the several politicians in attendance.
"Darling!" When Ruby Gale saw Dane, she must have read his intention in his face. "You're not leaving so soon?"
"We must," he said firmly, and sent an aloofly apologetic glance to the others for having interrupted them. Smoothly, he bent forward to kiss an artfully rouged cheek.
"I suppose you must," Ruby sighed, and let her glittering blue eyes wander to Pet, "After all, Miss Wallis is a working girl." The tone seemed to relegate Pet to an inferior class. "Call me tomorrow, darling. But not too early."
"It probably won't be until the afternoon. I'll be busy in the morning," Dane replied.
"Good evening, Miss Gale," Pet inserted so she wouldn't be ignored or treated as if she weren't there.
"Good evening, Miss Wallis." The phrase was returned, but most indifferently.
Then Dane's hand was on her waist, guiding her away toward the door. When the stocky secretary appeared Dane dismissed her with a brisk, "We can find our own way out. Good night, Clancy."
"Good night, Mr. Kingston."
Chapter Seven
THE SILENCE BETWEEN THEM was almost tangible, charging the air with crackling undercurrents. Not a word had been spoken since they had left Ruby Gale's hotel. Pet sat motionless in the bucket seat, an arm resting on the padded upholstery covering the door, a hand covering her mouth while she stared out of the side window of the car.
She ached inside — ached for the pleasure that could have been. If things had been different! But they hadn't. The evening had been a disastrous experience. She would rather have not discovered how deeply attracted she was to Dane Kingston, how jealous she could be and how easily hurt. The one consolation was that such intensity couldn't last; it would burn itself out. She had only to wait. In the meantime it was sweet agony to be sitting beside this vitally male member of the opposite sex, and forcing herself to ignore him.
In an empty parking stall next to the side entrance of the motel, Dane braked the car to a stop and switched off the powerful engine. Feeling his gaze burrowing into her, Pet collected the leather handbag from her lap and reached for the door handle, but Dane was quicker, leaning over to seize her wrist and prevent her escape. His arm was an iron band running diagonally across her, the sensitive nerve ends in her breast aware of every rippling outline of his muscles beneath the silken material of his shirtsleeve.
"What's bothering you, Pet?" His voice was low and taut with command.
Her head turned away from the door to bring him into her side vision, but she didn't look at him. She was conscious of the hard cast of his features, the determined grimness in the set of his jaw, and the harshness of his thin mouth.
"Nothing's bothering me," she insisted in cool dismissal.
"Something is," Dane persisted, not relaxing his hold so she could open the door. "And I don't believe it had anything to do with that reporter Brewster anymore. You were acting like this before he cornered you."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Pet lied in a weary breath. "I'm tired, so will you please let go of my hand? I'd like to go to my room and get some rest."
For a long second she didn't think Dane was going to release her. A barrage of suffocating sensations closed in on her. The air was warmly thick with the male scent unique to him, spiced with a whiff of his after-shave lotion. Under his muscled arm her heart was drumming its panic, while her flesh quivered ecstatically beneath his touch.
Then the talon-hard grip of her wrist was loosened and the restricting band of his arm was removed, setting her free. She sensed the impatience and irritation in his action, just as if he knew he could have obtained a truthful answer if he had pursued it. She was grateful he hadn't as she climbed out of the sports car. Simultaneously the door was slammed on the driver's side.
The summer night air was refreshingly cool against her heated face. Dane was waiting on the sidewalk to walk with her to the side entrance of the hotel, his eyes never relaxing their inspection of her until she was at his side. Pet held her head unnaturally high, keeping her face empty of expression.
Dane made no attempt to touch her, no guiding hand touched her arm or waist as they walked. There was something aloofly mocking in the way he held the door open for her to enter the building first, a tinge of smoldering anger in his brown eyes.
When they reached her room door, Pet already had the key out of her bag but, before she could make a move to unlock the door, Dane was taking the key from her hand and turning coldly to insert it in the lock. Her pulse was racing with the memory of the last time he'd done it, and the result.
At the click of the lock, Dane pushed the door open and stepped aside. The key was in his hand, yet he seemed hesitant to return it to her, as if he, too, was remembering the last time. She held her breath for those few seconds. When he started to hand it to her, she knew she had to say something to him before going inside.
"Thank you for a lovely evening," she coolly recited the meaningless phrase that was intended to dismiss him.
A savage anger darkened his expression. "Don't pawn that polite garbage off on me!" he rejected it with a low snarl. "It was a lousy evening and we both know it."
"All right, it was!" Pet agreed sharply, reacting to his anger out of self-defense. She forgot about the key in her need to get inside the room and shut the door on him.
Before she could succeed, his outstretched arm had stiffened to keep the door jammed open. "I want to know why," he demanded.
The hollow wood door seemed an inadequate shield against the man filling its frame and bracing it open with an arm. Yet Pet stood partially behind it, taking advantage of whatever protection it offered. The silken material of his beige shirt was stretched across his male physique, outlining his muscled torso and intimidating her with the contained strength that lay beneath it.
"Maybe I don't like being patronized!" she flared. "Did that ever occur to you?"
He shoved the door all the way open, pushing her backward as if her weight against it were no more of a deterrent than a feather. His long stride carried him past the door.
"You're going to explain that remark!" he snapped, stopping before she felt threatened enough to retreat in the face of his advance.
With a backw
ard push of his hand he sent the door swinging shut, although it didn't latch, only fell closed in its frame. His hands were on his hips, his stance challenging. Pet found the strength to confront him with all the many wounds to her pride She had endured that night.
"For starters, I didn't appreciate those absurdly flattering things you told Ruby Gale about me," she retorted.
"What things?" He looked taken aback, startled confusion entering his harsh frown.
"You know very well what things!" Pet stormed. "Those ridiculous lies that I was the best cameraman in the group! If you felt you had to defend me and rationalize my presence for her benefit, you could have simply said I was good. You didn't have to insult me with all that false praise!"
Her voice was choking on the last. Conscious of the sting of bitter tears pricking her eyes, she pivoted before he noticed, intending to put distance between them, but Dane grabbed her arm and spun her back. "False praise!" he exploded.
"Yes!" She twisted her arm, trying to pull it out of his hold, but his fingers tightened to dig into her flesh.
"You little fool, that happened to be the truth," he muttered through clenched teeth.
"Oh, come on now!" Pet derisively mocked him. "I should have made a tape recording of the cross talk." That was the term for the communication over the headsets. "Some of your rebukes were positively scathing!"
When she tried to walk away, Dane turned her back and pinned her shoulders to the wall. "You're not going anywhere," he informed her roughly. "You're going to stay right here and listen to me!"
"I'm not interested in hearing any more of your lies!" But she didn't have any choice. His arms were the bars trapping her between the wall and his towering frame.
"Then listen to reason," he demanded, and brought his face close to hers, his tanned features etched with fierce determination and suppressed anger. "You must have some small idea of how much money I have wrapped up in this special. Do you think that I chose this production crew at random? Every member I personally handpicked, because I wanted the best! And that includes you! I've reviewed everything you've done. I knew I was borrowing trouble by bringing a single woman on location — a beautiful single woman, I might add. But trouble or not, I'd have the best. That's why you're here, so what I told Ruby wasn't a lie."