Love on Trial

by Diana Palmer

  “Smart girl,” he replied. She felt his eyes on her. “Just keep in mind that I’m past the age of hand holding and chaste kisses. If I ever start making love to you, I won’t stop.”

  She felt the color burning in her cheeks, and she whirled to face him with her eyes widening in something between disbelief and outrage. “I…I wouldn’t let you!”

  “Yes, you would; because I’d know how to make you.” He paused to light a cigarette, but his eyes never left hers. “You react to me in a way that makes my blood splinter, little girl. You may think it’s carefully hidden, but I don’t miss much.” His eyes darkened. “I could rouse you to a kind of passion you never dreamed existed, and in minutes I could make you give me what you’ve never given any man.”

  “You couldn’t!” she whispered huskily.

  One dark eyebrow went up with a corner of his mouth. “Would you like me to prove it, Siri?” he asked gently.

  Her eyes widened. Just the thought of it made her tremble. She knew he could, it was written all over her. But it wouldn’t mean anything to him, except a new conquest, and she knew that, too. With a sound resembling a sob, she turned away, opening the sliding glass doors to walk out onto the cool balcony. In this distance, she could see the chain reaction of the waves as they hit the beach in a watery white rhythm, with a sound that was violent yet strangely soothing.

  She heard his step behind her, and smelled the tang of cigarette smoke in the semi-darkness.

  “Did I wound you, sparrow?” he asked calmly.

  She rubbed her hands over the chill on her arms. “I’m not bleeding,” she replied coolly. “I’m tough enough, Hawke. My line of work requires it as much as yours does.”

  There was a deep sigh behind her. “Randy’s known me for a lot of years. This is the first time he’s ever seen me with a woman in a hotel when it was innocent. I didn’t want either of them thinking you were the kind of woman I usually carry around with me.”

  The statement made her turn to face him, her eyes wide and curious. “But they’d probably never see me again…?”

  He didn’t say anything, but his eyes were intent on her face, and she saw his jaw clench as she looked up at him.

  She dropped her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’ve been touchy this week. It’s my fault. I…I don’t know why.”

  “I do,” he said softly. “But there isn’t a damned thing I can do about it.” Before she could pick up on that, he moved to the balcony railing. “Siri, I’ve got a good lead but it’s going to mean leaving you here for a day or so while I run it down.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “The day after. Can you amuse yourself until I get back?”

  “Of course. But can’t I come along?” she asked.

  She saw the white flash of teeth as he grinned. “If you want to share a bed with me. I’ll be staying in a friend’s apartment.”

  She knew without being told that the friend in question was female. She felt vaguely betrayed and angry.

  “I didn’t think it was ethical to get information that way,” she said tightly.

  “What way?” he asked imperturbably.

  “Well, it’s a woman, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then…”

  “You’d better quit while you’re ahead,” he remarked with patient amusement. “I might get the impression that you’re jealous.”

  “Me? Jealous? Of you? The idea!” she exclaimed.

  He chuckled softly, dangerously. “If you were a few years older, or only a little more sophisticated, I’d take you to bed and teach you what being a woman is all about.”

  “You…you…how…!” she sputtered. Before she let her temper get the best of her at his merciless teasing, she ran back into the suite, into her bedroom, and locked the door loudly behind her. Of all the maddening men in the world, Hawke Grayson was definitely at the top of the list! In the distance, she heard again the soft, dangerous sound of his deep laughter.

  The taunting left its mark on her. She was withdrawn the next morning as she and Hawke rode along the white satin coast with Randy and Kitty. She was thankful for Randy’s chatter which made it unnecessary for her to carry on a conversation.

  It seemed like no time at all before they got to the marine world complex, an enormous circular building with people streaming in and out. Even though it was crowded, Siri reacted to it with the same eager curiosity that had led her into reporting. Everything here was new, exciting, and she felt like a child in a candy store.

  The dolphins in the aquarium outside were beautiful and sleek, looking so delicately gentle for all their size that she felt a sudden surge of compassion for them. It was sad that animals of such remarkable intelligence that they could save men in the sea, and communicate with each other in their own unique language, were reduced to the level of performing dogs.

  “Aren’t they beautiful?” Kitty sighed, smiling as the trainer held a fish over the tank, which the dolphin leapt up to take gently out of his hand.

  “In the open sea, yes,” Siri said vaguely. “Here, imprisoned…”

  “It beats having them slaughtered by Japanese fishermen,” Hawke remarked, watching her closely.

  She nodded as she met his probing eyes, amazed at the way he had of reading her mind.

  “She doesn’t like zoos, either,” Hawke told their two companions with a half smile. He caught Siri by the hand and pulled her along with him. “I’ll take her downstairs to see the turtles.”

  “Do people eat sea turtles?” Siri asked as they went down the steps to the darker level of the building.

  “Yes, honey, they do. But not these,” he added. “God, you’re a little crusader.”

  “I can’t help it if I don’t like to see things caged,” she muttered.

  He turned her to him by the wall, out of the way of other tourists, and looked down into her flushed face. “Including people?”

  “Including people,” she said reluctantly. “I…I don’t like being a possession,” she added uneasily.

  His big hands moved caressingly to her shoulders. “How would you know, little girl,” he asked in a deep, slow voice, “when you’ve never been possessed?”

  She blushed, meeting the teasing look in his eyes. “You don’t know that.”

  “Don’t I, sparrow?” he asked softly. He drew her slowly against his broad, hard body, feeling her stiffen even at the light contact. The implied intimacy of the action, as she felt his broad thighs touch her own, caused her to draw back as if she’d been burned.

  “Coward,” he murmured. “What could I do to you here?”

  She pulled gently away from him and concentrated on the shell exhibits all around the well-lit room. Inside, she was trembling with the newness of that note in Hawke’s deep voice, from the unfamiliar fire in his eyes when he’d looked at her.

  “Don’t panic,” he said at her shoulder, “I was only teasing, Siri.”

  “I…I’d like it if you wouldn’t,” she replied tightly. “You said yourself once that I was still wet behind the ears. I know I am, but it hurts to have you make fun of it.”

  His hands touched her waist lightly, and she felt his breath in her hair. “God knows I’m not making fun of you, sparrow,” he said quietly.

  “Then why do you…”

  “God, baby, what can I do?” he asked huskily.

  “I don’t understand.”

  But before she could turn around, or he could answer, Randy and Kitty joined them and the rest of the afternoon went by quickly as they discovered one tourist attraction after another. It was at the last one, the snake palace, that Siri balked.

  “Oh, no,” she said quickly, hanging back as the other three started toward the enclosed building with its gaudy pictures of vicious-looking reptiles. “I’d rather bleed to death than walk in there.”

  “Are you afraid of snakes?” Kitty asked gently.

  “Oh, no,” Siri denied, “I’m terrified of them!”

 
“You two go ahead,” Hawke told them. “I’ll keep Siri company.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Siri protested quickly, and the snakes began to look better and better to her. “I can…”

  “Hawke? Hawke!” came a sultry, surprised voice from behind them.

  They turned, just in time to see a dark, petite little brunette throw herself into Hawke’s arms and pull his head down to kiss him feverishly. Siri turned away from the sight, which went through her like a flaming lance.

  “Oh, Hawke!” the brunette cooed softly, with more than a trace of Spanish accent, “what a wonderful surprise to find you here! Can you come back with Renaldo and me for a drink?”

  “I’m with friends, Angel,” he replied with a smile.

  “No importa,” Angel said breezily, “bring them, too! I’ve got a villa near here, with miles and miles of beach. And Renaldo would love to talk over old times with you.”

  “Where is your brother?” he asked, puncturing Siri’s vain hope that the missing “Renaldo” might be the woman’s husband.

  “Back there. Rey…Rey!” Angel called, and a strikingly tall, dark man came wandering up to join the small group. His eyes swept over Siri’s slender body.

  “You remember Hawke, don’t you?” Angel asked with a flash of white teeth.

  “Most assuredly,” Rey said. “A pleasure. And this is…?” he asked, swinging without warning to face Siri, his eyes level and plainly interested.

  “My partner’s daughter, Siri Jamesson,” Hawke replied with a curtness in his tone that was lost on Rey.

  “A pleasure,” the Latin repeated, and lifted Siri’s hand to his lips.

  Hawke introduced Randy and Kitty, and Angel persisted until she got her way and had them back in the rented car headed for her villa. Oh, well, Siri thought wearily, at least she had escaped the snakes.

  But when they got to the hacienda-style villa with its seemingly acres of untouched beach, Siri wondered if the snakes just might not have been better. Between Angel’s openly seductive manner toward Hawke and Rey’s dead-tilt efforts to catch Siri’s wary eye, it was like being caged with tigers.

  The worst of it was the familiarity between Hawke and the little brunette. They were more than just old friends, and it showed. Why it should have mattered so much, Siri didn’t know. But it mattered. She wanted to get out, to run, to go home. She couldn’t bear the way his dark eyes played on Angel’s face, and she didn’t understand her own indignation.

  “What do you do, Miss Jamesson?” Rey asked politely, perching himself comfortably on the arm of the massive chair she was sitting in. “Are you an attorney like your father?”

  “I’m a reporter.”

  “A reporter!” His eyes brightened with interest.

  Siri laughed. “I work for a daily newspaper, but I cover the police beat; fires, wrecks, murders, those kind of stories. And believe me, there’s nothing funny about that.”

  “A woman involved in such tragic work?” he exclaimed. “You must have nerves of iron!”

  “Not really,” Siri admitted, sipping the rum punch in her tall glass. “What do you do?”

  He shrugged. “Not much of anything,” he admitted. He grinned. “I have, fortunately, the means to pursue a life of pleasure.”

  “How nice,” she murmured appropriately.

  “Yes, it is.”

  She glanced at him, mentally comparing him with Hawke, who also had the means to pursue a life of pleasure, but preferred useful work that also had its dangers. Hawke didn’t seem to care for Angel’s brother, and she wondered if he didn’t remind him of his own father; a pleasure seeker, uninvolved and uncaring except for his own idle pursuits. It didn’t sound like much of a life, but she kept quiet. To each his own, she thought.

  “I wish I had not promised to join my friends for a cruise,” Rey said. “I would much prefer to spend the time with you.”

  “Unfortunately,” she smiled, “I have very little time to spend on pleasure. I’m a working girl, and I’m here on assignment. I have to account for my days.”

  “You are not…how you say…Hawke’s woman?” he asked.

  She glared at him. “I have a steady boyfriend back home who suits me very well,” she said with ice in her tone. “I’m here working on a story, of which Hawke is part. That’s all. Period. I am not available for fun and games for bored playboys!”

  “Please, Siri, you misunderstand…!” Rey began quickly, his face going rather white at the tone of her voice.

  “I don’t think so,” she told him, rising. She moved back to where Kitty was sitting and squeezed in beside her, leaving the stunned Latin behind her.

  Hawke glanced toward her, then toward the glass she was holding, and she read the amusement in his dark eyes. It made her flush uncomfortably. I’m not tipsy, she wanted to yell at him. In defiance, she lifted the glass to her lips again.

  “Having trouble, honey?” Kitty whispered, squeezing her hand.

  “Not any more,” she replied smugly, and finished the rum punch while the others sailed forth on the subject of ships.

  Rey left soon afterwards with a really wounded look about him. Siri half regretted what she’d said, but not that she’d said it. She didn’t have time to fight off an amorous Latin in whom she wasn’t really interested.

  If she’d been hoping for an early departure, her hopes were doomed to disappointment. Angel insisted that the small group stay for a meal. She had her combination housekeeper-cook busy in the kitchen before anyone could protest.

  Siri hated the ordeal of watching Angel smother Hawke. She hated even more the fact that he didn’t seem to mind her attentions. It went from bad to worse when the little Spanish woman turned on her expensive stereo system and flooded the room with soft, seductive music. She threw back the carpet and invited the others to dance, pointedly ignoring the fact that Siri didn’t have a partner as she glued herself to Hawke’s broad body.

  Randy, a gentleman from the shoes up, asked Siri to dance, but she quickly shook her head with a convincing smile.

  “Oh, I don’t dance,” she said quickly, “but thanks all the same.”

  She dodged the incredulous look Hawke threw her over Angel’s bare shoulder and curled up on the sofa with a magazine about the latest fashions. Did Angel have to dance that close to him, she wondered, darting a green glance their way. Did she have to press so close, and tangle her hands in that softly curling hair at the nape of his broad neck? Did she have to look so bloody content?

  As soon as it was humanly possible, she promised herself that she was going to get out of that room and make herself scarce until supper. She’d never felt more suffocated. She had the oddest feeling that Angel found her threatening, and it puzzled her. There wasn’t anything between her and Hawke, wasn’t it obvious? After all, Siri sighed, remembering her nose that was too short, her eyes that were too big, her hair that was too silvery to be a true blonde—she was no competition for that spicy Latin. So why was Angel throwing her the icy looks?

  While she was working that out, she failed to hear the phone ring, or see the housekeeper motioning to Angel. She missed the sudden intent look in Hawke’s dark eyes as he started toward her. She felt him catch her hand, and she gasped with surprise. She hadn’t realized he was so close.

  “Dance with me, sparrow,” he said quietly.

  She let him pull her to her feet and lead her out onto the bare wood floor. His big arms enveloped her close against his broad, husky body until air could barely have gotten between them. She felt the tremor go through her slender body and wondered at the strength and newness of what she was feeling.

  The sun was just beginning to go down outside the huge picture window, darkening the room gently, intimately. The slow, sultry pace of the music made the atmosphere all that much more intimate, and Randy and his young wife were already oblivious to their surroundings as they danced a few feet away.

  Drowning in new sensations, Siri moved close to Hawke. Obeying an instinct as o
ld as time, her hands slid up over his broad chest to tangle gently in the thick hair that curled just slightly at the nape of his powerful neck.

  “Siri…” he warned softly, something tight and odd in his tone as his big hands contracted bruisingly at her waist.

  She nestled her head against his chest with a sigh, letting the music and the nearness wash over her as the amber glow of a setting sun added to the magic of being close against Hawke like this, making her feel reckless.

  Her fingers caressed the back of his head slowly, gently. Against her slenderness, she could feel the heavy, driving beat of his heart through the thin fabric of his shirt. The blazing warmth of his chest caressed her cheek.

  “Do you know what you’re doing to me?” he asked gruffly, his grip tightening painfully.

  “You didn’t grumble when Angel did it,” she murmured drowsily.

  “Angel wouldn’t mind the consequences. You would,” he said flatly.

  She moved closer. “Are you sure?” she whispered softly.

  His big hands moved up to the back of her head, forcing her face up to his dark, blazing eyes. “You’d better be,” he warned huskily.

  Something in the way he was looking at her made her blood run wild through her veins. Her fingers reached up and touched his mouth gently, sensually. “Oh, Hawke…” she whispered, her eyes soft with faint pleading as they met his.

  “Watch the table!” Kitty called, but it was too late. Siri hit it with her hip, and it was just bruising enough to break the spell.

  She drew slightly away from Hawke, gingerly touching her bruised hip, then suddenly remembering what she’d been doing. She glanced at him just once and turned quickly away. Her nervous fingers opened the sliding doors of the picture window where steps led down to the beach.

  “Excuse me,” she murmured over her shoulder, “I think I need some air.”

  She darted down the steps, embarrassed, and onto the gritty sand of the beach, feeling it fill her sandals as she started running along the shoreline. The sun hovered low on the horizon, and the breeze felt good in her face, cool and sobering. Her hair lifted from her hot neck, cooling the dampness, bringing her swaying mind slowly back into focus.