by Arlene James
Denise chuckled. “I was thinking more along the lines of transferring her to another department.”
Clearly, so simple a solution had never occurred to Chuck Dayton. His brows rose in tandem. “Can we do that?”
“I’m sure I can find some place for her.”
“Will she take a transfer?”
Denise grinned. “I’ll find a way to sell her on it. Even if we have to give her a small raise in salary to offset the loss of commission, we’ll still come out way ahead. Just the cost of defending a lawsuit—”
Chuck waved a hand dismissively. “Sounds like you’ve got the situation in hand. Best get on with it. The sooner we transfer her the less likely she is to connect it with her little bun in the oven.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Trying hard not to smile, she got to her feet, glanced at her wristwatch and started toward the door, saying briskly, “I’ve got an appointment in five minutes. Have a good one.”
“year. you too.” Just as her hand reached out for the brass knob on his door, he called out her name. “Hey, Denise?”
She froze, wondering if he might have changed his mind already, but no, he wouldn’t have. Pasting a smile on her face, she turned. “Yes?”
He’d twisted around in his chair and was grinning at her like the cat who’d swallowed the canary. “I was just thinking that the two of us make a pretty good team, wouldn’t you say?”
Relief, mingled with distaste, filled her. “A business partnership made in heaven,” she lied smoothly, and then she got out of there before he could see the revulsion in her eyes. She had to remind herself why she was doing this. Not only had she saved an expectant mother’s job, she’d headed off Chuck’s amorous intentions, for now—for as long as she could keep him believing that Morgan Holt was the man in her life. As long as she could do that, her career was safe. But God help her if either one of them ever found out about this particularly convenient lie.
Morgan winked at the pretty attendant who wrote her own name in the space designated for the name of the member whose guest he was. She was entirely too young for his comfort, but he was willing to overlook that if doing so would help him get Denise Jenkins off his mind. If he had hopes of seeing her here at the gym this evening, he steadfastly refused to acknowledge them. Instead, he glanced over the racquetball court reservation list, looking for a likely partner. Chuck Dayton’s name caught his eye, and he grinned when he saw that another man’s name had been scratched out beside it. Flirting outrageously, he borrowed a pen from the attendant and wrote his own name over the one that had been scratched out. Then he winked at the perky blond and took himself off to stretch and warm up.
Chuck had not yet arrived when Morgan entered the closed-in court. Morgan was well aware that if Chuck’s partner had notified him personally of the change in plans, Chuck might not even show up. Nevertheless, he began swatting a ball around in preparation for play. Three or four minutes later, Chuck lumbered into the room in his expensive warm-up suit and shoes, a sweat band encircling his bald head, a black leather bag in hand.
“Morgan! What are you doing here?”
Morgan caught the ball in one hand and turned to face Chuck. “Hoping to pick up a game. Your partner canceled. Or didn’t you know?”
“Halstead canceled?” Chuck mumbled warily. “How did you know?”
“I read the list.”
Chuck stared, no doubt thinking through the situation. Morgan recognized the instant when old Chuck convinced himself that he could beat Morgan and win back a little of his own. He nodded and said too heartily, “Good thing for me you were around to take his place.”
Morgan inclined his head, grinning. “My pleasure.”
Chuck dropped his bag and began stripping off his warm-ups. “I have to warn you, though, I don’t like losing.”
Morgan chuckled. “Who does?”
Chuck shrugged. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I always beat Denise, you know.”
“Do you?”
“And I understand that Denise beat you.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Around the gym. You didn’t let her win, did you?”
Morgan gave the ball a satisfying whack and said, “I never let anyone win.”
Chuck seemed to take that as a guarantee of his own victory, for he laughed as he took out his racquet and set his other things outside the door. Morgan insisted that the older man take a few minutes to warm up. As he did so—stretching and jogging and wiggling in place, then slapping a ball around—he talked of Denise.
“Great head on that girl, not that the rest of her isn’t top-notch, too.”
“She isn’t a girl,” Morgan pointed out blandly.
Chuck chuckled. “Some of the guys in the office call her Dennis, but I always figured she was all woman, and you’d be the one to know, being her boyfriend.”
Morgan gave him a quick look at that. Hadn’t Denise told him that they were no longer an item, however imaginary? Or had the subject merely never come up again after their dinner together? He didn’t ask, choosing to listen instead as Chuck rambled on.
“I have to say that I’m a little surprised, though.”
“Why is that?”
“You don’t seem the type, that’s all.”
Morgan gave him a full-face look. “What type would that be?”
“You know, the type to take a back seat to a woman’s career.”
“Ah. And, um, did Denise say specifically that I was that type?”
Chuck shrugged and dropped into his stance. “More or less.” He signaled with a nod that Morgan should serve, and Morgan made ready to do so, pausing only a moment longer.
“And when did she do that?”
Chuck gave him a curious but offhanded glance before sliding his gaze back to the ball perched on Morgan’s fingertips. “She’s always talking about you.”
Morgan nearly dropped the ball. “Since we had dinner together, you mean?”
“Sure. I didn’t know a thing about you before then. No one did.”
The little sneak! She was going around telling everyone that he was her guy—and after cutting him off at the knees like that! A sly, wicked grin narrowed his eyes. Oh, this was going to be good. This was going to be very good. He served the ball.
Distraction nearly cost him that first game, but he managed to relegate Denise and what he was going to demand of her to the back of his mind long enough to squeak by. Games two and three were handy wins, however, and by the end Chuck was just barely able to go through the motions, his face a doughy mass of blood red, his breath wheezing in and out. Morgan clapped him on the shoulder and declared facetiously that he was just having a bad day. Chuck was too winded to even make face-saving agreement. Morgan bounced into the shower and then dressed and combed his hair. When he came out again, Chuck was still trying to work up the energy to take off his shoes. Morgan wished him a merry farewell and went out whistling. He felt better than he’d felt since that night over two weeks ago when Denise had so ardently kissed him back.
The October wind was bracing enough to turn downright nippy when it flowed over his wet head, but he merely turned up the collar of his navy blue cardigan, hunched his shoulders and kept walking. Reaching the late-model, light blue truck that he drove every day, he got in and drove straight home. Less than ten seconds later, he was knocking on Denise Jenkins’s door.
Denise stood at the end of the kitchen counter, one hand braced flat against its top, and bent forward, lifting first one foot and then the other to whisk off her shoes. It was heaven to stand flat-footed. She put her head back and luxuriated in the feel, listening to Smithson delicately crunching his cat food. Such a day! And to make matters worse, the temperature was dropping at an alarming rate. She shivered, dreaming of a long soak in a hot tub and knowing that instead she would be spending the evening curled up on the couch with a number of files to be studied. Sighing, she rolled her head side to side and bent to pick up her shoes. Just as she straigh
tened, someone knocked at her door—someone she hoped was a complete stranger.
Warily she carried her shoes into the entry and looked at the door as if doing so would tell her who stood outside. Finally she leaned forward and peeked carefully through the spy hole. None other than Morgan Holt stood fidgeting on her doorstep. Denise closed her eyes, a sense of foreboding washing over her. For a long, tense moment she considered pretending that she wasn’t home, but her car in the carport would give her away. Besides, she told herself, this didn’t mean that he was on to her. He was her landlord, after all. She took a deep breath and reached out to flick open the door. As it swung outward, her gaze quickly took in the dark, snug jeans and loafers, worn with a burgundy turtleneck beneath a navy cardigan with big, wooden buttons, and wet hair. He stepped up into the entry without waiting for an invitation and pulled the door closed behind him.
“Chilly out there,” he said, shivering.
She let her gaze whip over his wet hair. “Don’t you have sense enough to dry your hair before you go out in weather like this?”
He shrugged. “I was in a hurry.”
“Well, so am I,” she replied dismissively. “I have work to do, so if you could make this brief, I’d appreciate it.” She struck what she hoped was a nonchalant pose, despite the shoes clutched by the heels in one hand. He turned and took himself into her living room, again ignoring the fact that she hadn’t invited him inside. Temper piqued, she went after him. “You are the rudest man!” she exclaimed. “I’ve already told you I don’t have time for this! Now say what you have to say and go!”
He sat himself down on the sofa and got comfortable. Obviously he was going to take his own sweet time, the cad. Well, she’d be hanged if she’d play his game. She planted her feet and folded her arms, glaring him into speaking. When he did, she wished he hadn’t.
“I saw Chuck at the gym today.”
Denise felt the color drain from her face. Oh, God. Oh God oh God oh God. She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat and tried to think of a reply. She needn’t have bothered. He displayed every intention of controlling the conversation.
“Actually,” he said with terrible brightness, “we played a game of racquetball. I won, of course, and it was a real treat. You should try it some time, beating old Chuck—or just playing him fair and square.”
Having regained a little of her aplomb, she forced a smile and sank down on the very edge of the armchair. “I, um, I would enjoy that. Unfortunately I’m an employee, and Chuck is the kind of boss who—”
“Expects to be allowed to win,” he finished for her. “Yes, I know. What a pity. Puts a person in a very difficult position. I imagine it’s hard to maintain one’s personal integrity in a situation like that. Why, a person might even resort to...schemes, falsehoods. Even outright lies.”
Denise gulped, color returning to her face in a rush of hot red. Obviously he knew everything. It was no use pretending that he didn’t. She took a deep breath, surprised at how close to tears she was. “Wh-what did you say to him?”
He stared for a long time, then dropped his gaze to a piece of lint on the arm of the sofa, his fingers flicking at it repeatedly. “Nothing. Too bad you can’t say the same. Tell me, just what it is that you go around saying about me all the time? I mean, since you talk about me so much, not that couples don’t discuss each other on occasion. It’s just that we’re not... a couple, that is. Except according to Chuck—and you, apparently.” With that last he raised his gaze and nailed her to the chair.
Denise felt about as small as a flea, but she’d fought too hard and too long to give up without even making an attempt to defend herself. “I...I didn’t exactly tell him that we’re a couple. He just assumed it. Naturally, he would after-”
“Naturally. And naturally you never thought to inform him that you weren’t even speaking to me, let alone...well, doing what couples do together.”
She licked her lips. “I, um, didn’t think you’d mind. After all, you agreed to pose as my boyfriend.”
“So I did,” he said affably, “and in return you slammed a door in my face.”
“You kissed me!” she blurted.
“And you kissed me back.”
“That’s not the point! Friends don’t kiss! Friends...”
“Pretend? That’s all we were doing, Denise, pretending we didn’t want to kiss. Besides, some people think of friendship as the starting point of a relationship, not the end of one.”
“You were just using friendship as a way to get close to me!” she accused.
“Yes. And you were using me as a pawn in your little game of professional chess with old Chuck. It’s true that I was perfectly willing—for the chance to get close to you. But you shut me out.”
She shook her head, not because she hadn’t done it, but because he made it sound so...wrong. He just didn’t understand that she couldn’t, wouldn’t, risk that kind of emotional involvement again. “You shouldn’t have kissed me,” she said in a small voice that she barely recognized as her own.
“I disagree,” he said calmly. “I think you need to be kissed in the very worst way, and I refuse to apologize for wanting to be the one to do it. Next time—”
“There won’t be a next time!” she exclaimed, shooting up to her feet, her shoes forgotten in the chair behind her.
“Oh, I think there will be,” he said. “At least the opportunity for it...unless you’ve decided that honesty is the best policy, after all.”
She didn’t miss his meaning. He was blackmailing her! He was threatening to tell Chuck that they were not a couple, but he was saying more than that, too. He was offering her his protection, providing... What? Surely he could see that forcing himself on her would make him every bit as unattractive as Chuck himself. Yes, of course he did. Her own instinct told her that this was not about sex or power for Morgan. What he wanted from her was infinitely more dangerous. This was about love. What he wanted from her was her love. But she couldn’t give it. And suddenly she knew that was her protection from him, her inability to love again. Perhaps by the time he found out that about her, she would have slipped past Chuck on the career ladder. So what if he kissed her again. So what if she kissed him back. That would never be enough for Morgan Holt, and that would save her. She relaxed her hands, her fingers gradually uncurling. “What do I have to do?”
He spread his hands and said oh so innocently, “Nothing. Unless... Well, I do have this problem with my father.”
“Your father?”
“Mmm, the problem, really, is my sister. She thinks we should put him in a nursing home, but I disagree. He’s happiest where he is, and as long as his mind is good, which it is, I don’t see that we even have the right to try to tell him where he should live. I was thinking that maybe you could give me your opinion. Not without seeing firsthand how he lives, of course, which you could do, say, Sunday afternoon? I usually visit him on Sunday afternoons. You could come along. If you want.”
“Sunday afternoon?” she echoed pensively.
“I could really use another woman’s perspective,” he added needlessly. “What do you say?”
What could she say? She relaxed her stance and forced out the words. “Sunday afternoon...would be okay, I guess.”
“Excellent.” He got to his feet, smiling down at her as benignly as if he hadn’t just coerced her into what amounted to a date. Well, let him smile, and let him keep on smiling until she had what she needed from him, and then... Well, then he’d have no one to blame but himself. She’d tried to make him understand. It wasn’t her fault that he couldn’t take no for an answer.
He stepped forward, and she stepped back, more from a sense of self-preservation than anything else. His smile became rather smugly knowing. “About two?” he asked.
She nodded briefly. “Fine. Now I really must get to work.”
“All right.” He headed toward the entry. “Then I’ll see you Sunday.”
“At two.” she confirmed, following.
Morgan stood on the doorstep, hunched against the chill wind, and smiled to himself. She’d looked so cute standing there in her bare feet with her shoes in her hand. All the fight had gone out of him at the first sight of her, all the indignation disappearing like so much mist in the morning sun. But he wasn’t fool enough not to use the tools she’d given him. He’d thought that it was over, that no avenue of approach was left to him. He’d just assumed that she’d changed her mind about passing him off as her boyfriend, that she’d rather fend off old touchy-feely Chuck than risk kissing him again. Now that he knew otherwise, he had a way to get next to her, and he’d be damned if he wouldn’t use it.
Not that he’d really blow her story to Chuck. He was no more happy about the idea of Chuck touching her than he had been before. In fact, he’d intended to tell Chuck that the threat still stood, no matter that he and Denise had “broken up.” That had been the main reason he’d gone to the gym today, but what Chuck had said to him had changed everything. He could only hope that something positive would come of this.
Just what it was about Denise Jenkins that drew him so intensely, he couldn’t say, unless it was the need he sensed beneath that brave, tough facade. To have been forced to choose between her husband and her child and then to have lost the child so senselessly was almost more than he could comprehend. Oh, yes, Denise Jenkins was one of the walking wounded with whom he so strongly identified, but those folks were everywhere. And while he empathized, he’d never felt that it was his personal mission to help heal all those other crippled souls. What made Denise different? What created this intense attraction? Was it just that she was beautiful? Belinda, his ex, was beautiful, too, and he’d met any number of highly attractive women since he and Belinda had parted ways. Why now? Why the one woman who wanted nothing to do with him?