Dangerous Attraction

by Melinda Cross

  ‘I can fill a Thermos, if you’d like to take some along.’

  Her eyes lifted to his. ‘You aren’t coming with me?’

  ‘No.’

  Such a flat, incontrovertible tone. How did she reply to that? How did she ask him how he could stand to let her go alone, when separation from him, even for a few minutes, was agony?

  She toyed with the handle of her cup, watching the coffee lap the edges of its white porcelain bowl. ‘I need more material before I can start writing the new screenplay…’

  He looked off to one side and said nothing.

  ‘I’d like you to drive me, Marcus,’ she said softly.

  ‘Funny, isn’t it?’ he asked, still gazing at some point across the room. ‘I was prepared to give you anything it was in my power to give, and all you want is a ride to the sheriff’s office.’ He turned to look her full in the face and smiled, just a little. The gray eyes looked pensive, almost sympathetic, and Rebecca stared into them, thinking how odd that was. Why on earth would he feel sorry for her? ‘I wish you would have asked for more, Becca,’ he whispered, and because the softly spoken words rang with sincerity she smiled back at him.

  Didn’t he know that he had already taught her spirit to fly? That he’d given her dreams she had never known to dream of?

  ‘Give me a few minutes,’ he said, rising from his chair with a weary sigh. ‘I’ll bring the car around front.’

  He’s tired, she thought, her eyes soft as they followed him out the back door. Tired to death of the whole tawdry business, longing for the end.

  She took a deep breath and pushed herself up from the table, feeling strong and confident and very nearly invincible.

  The end Marcus longed for was very near; she could feel it. There was something just around the corner—a snippet of information, a casual comment from someone—a nugget of proof that would end once and for all Charity Lauder’s hold on his life.

  She took a quick sip of coffee then hurried upstairs to gather her notebook and purse. Almost as an afterthought, she grabbed her light denim jacket from a hook on the closet door, then ran downstairs to call Victor before Marcus brought the car around.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  OUTSIDE the office window the morning sun was filtering through the trees on the hill, scattering sparkles on the rapidly melting snow. Heavy with residual moisture, the leaves hung limply from their branches, but the yellows and reds and golds were more intense than ever with that background of white.

  Rebecca smiled out the window for a moment, wondering how the woods would look in full winter, with the leaves down and the branches dressed in a heavy coat of snow. She didn’t doubt for a moment that she would see this for herself, even though she hadn’t consciously considered the progression of events that would lead to it. As she thought about it now, her smile broadened.

  She and Marcus would live here, of course. They would raise a family in this grand old house, and the empty rooms would ring with the laughter of their children.

  She released the seductive image of what was to be with great reluctance, and turned to the desk to take charge of the here and now.

  As she dialed Victor’s number in California, her eyes swept over the photographs that recorded the intertwined lives of Johnny and Marcus, and she felt a wave of protective tenderness toward both men, an increased determination to expose the lie that had desecrated such a friendship.

  ‘Hey, Becca. I’ve been worried about you.’ The concern in Victor’s voice touched her in a way it never had, as if Marcus had opened the gates of love and affection wide enough to let others in. ‘I left messages on that machine of Flint’s. Didn’t you get them?’

  Her eyes shifted to the blinking red light on the answering machine and she blushed, remembering what she’d been doing when she heard the phone ring. ‘Sorry, Victor. We’ve been out more than in…’

  ‘Well, listen, honey. Things are getting pretty hot on this end. Charity stopped by the office yesterday; wanted to know what was holding up the movie. I figured, What the hell? I might as well tell her. So I confronted her with a few cold, hard facts about her past and a few pointed questions about her credibility.’ He released a long sigh.

  ‘How did she react?’

  ‘Like an atom bomb, at first. And then like a cornered she-bear, and then she did the quickest turnaround I’ve ever seen—became the pathetic, bewildered, grieving woman, as if she’d just remembered that was what she was supposed to be. I’m telling you, Becca, I should have hired her as an actress on the spot. It was quite a performance. Truth is, I don’t think she ever expected anyone actually to check up on her story, and it threw her. There’s something there, Becca, no doubt about it. Have you learned anything new?’

  Rebecca took a deep breath and relayed what the nurses at the hospital had told her about Charity’s condition when she’d been brought in.

  ‘Aside from two-week old bruises she probably got in the plane crash, she didn’t have a scratch on her, Victor. Amazing, isn’t it? All those horrendous falls into ravines she described in the book, and she came out totally unscathed. And there was no frostbite, no hypothermia—they said she didn’t even look as if she’d been outside, let alone lost in a blizzard for two weeks. The whole book was lie, Victor, right from page one.’

  ‘Which throws everything she said about Flint into question…’ Victor mused, then went silent for a moment.

  Rebecca waited patiently for his thoughts to process the new information.

  ‘Okay,’ he said finally. ‘Do you have what you need to put the new screenplay together?’

  ‘Almost. I want to interview the deputy who found her, and the day staff at the hospital. I have this nagging feeling that I’ve missed something—something that would really prove Charity lied…’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about it, Becca. Our lawyers tell me we’ve already got enough to break the contract with Lauder, and as far as I’m concerned, even if we only do it as speculative fiction, Flint’s version is going to make a better movie. Finish your interviews today if you can, the get yourself back here and start writing.’

  Rebecca went still for a moment at the idea of leaving Marcus—a thought that hadn’t occurred to her once since this morning. Certainly she could write the screenplay here as well as in California, but she’d at least have to go back for long enough to close the house and pack her things. She glanced down at her last remaining outfit and shook her head at how quickly love made you forget practical things.

  She opened her mouth to explain to Victor the wonders that had happened here, and then froze with a silly grin on her face. She had no idea how to convey such a thing in mere words. ‘Why don’t I call you back later today?’ she told him instead.

  ‘Fine. Call the airport first, then you can give me a flight number when you call and I’ll pick you up myself.’ His voice quivered with excitement. ‘This really is going to be a hell of a movie, isn’t it, Becca?’

  ‘It certainly is, Victor,’ she smiled, thinking that he didn’t know the half of it.

  She was just moving to stand when the telephone rang, startling her a little.

  The answering machine clicked on immediately, and she smiled at Marcus’s recorded message brusquely telling the caller to leave a message. After the beep, a tightly controlled bass voice began to resonate through the machine’s small speaker.

  ‘Marcus, this is Brett, and dammit, this is the last message I’m leaving on that infernal machine of yours…’

  Rebecca raised her brows and hesitated, half out of the chair.

  ‘I can’t be very effective as your lawyer unless you talk to me, Marcus, and you damn well better talk to me soon, the way things are going…’

  Rebecca sighed and eased back down into the chair. She was eavesdropping, she supposed, but the lawyer sounded anxious, and Marcus might need to know what he said.

  ‘I assume you would have called if you’d made any headway with that Hutchinson broad…’

  Her
expression froze as her head turned slowly toward the machine.

  ‘So listen up, Marcus. You damn well better hurry up and put some of that legendary Flint charm into play. Like I told you before, sleep with her if you have to—hell, tell her you love her and promise to marry her if that’s what it takes—just get her to stop production on that goddamned movie.’

  Rebecca sat perfectly still, her unblinking gaze fixed on the answering machine, her heart free-falling down toward her stomach.

  ‘Because it isn’t just Sugar Ridge that’s at stake any more. Charity’s suing you for the rest of your holdings, too…’

  One of Rebecca’s hands moved slowly, unconsciously, up to her mouth. Her fingers pressed lightly against lips that were suddenly quivering, trying to hold them still.

  ‘You hear me, Marcus? She’s going to try to take everything you’ve got on the premise that you were responsible for Johnny’s death, and the kicker is that she might just get away with it.’

  Rebecca sat perfectly still, her back straight, her thoughts numb. Her eyes began to water, and she had to force herself to blink.

  ‘The book was bad enough, but, like I told you before, Marc, if that movie hits every screen in the country, we won’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of finding a sympathetic jury. We got a lucky break when the screenwriter turned out to be a woman, and I hope to hell you aren’t wasting it. How hard can it be for a guy like you to get some woman to fall in love with you…?’

  Rebecca’s eyes fell closed and her senses shut down, blocking out the sound of the voice that had already told her more than she wanted to hear. Both hands covered her mouth now, hid the lips that Marcus had kissed on the advice of his lawyer.

  ‘I was prepared to give you anything it was in my power to give. I wish you would have asked for more, Becca.’

  His words echoed in her head and she closed her eyes tighter and tighter, until she could feel the roundness of her cheeks pushing up against her lower lids. Behind them, she saw herself as Marcus must have seen her—a pathetically easy target, still carrying the pain of childhood rejections, her cynicism such a thinly disguised yearning for acceptance and love…What child’s play it must have been to capture such a lonely heart, to shatter those pitiful defenses and mold her into the champion he needed.

  No. It’s not true. Marcus isn’t like that.

  Her eyes fluttered open at the weak, tiny protest her bruised heart was making. For a moment, because she wanted to so desperately, she almost believed it. But then she heard the other voice. It was oddly calm, perfectly rational, utterly contemptuous.

  Right, Rebecca, the voice mocked her. Marcus isn’t like that. Marcus would never use you. Just as your father would never let anyone come between you, just as your stepsisters would learn to like you eventually, just as your stepmother would never, ever kick you out of your own house…For God’s sake, Rebecca. When are you going to learn?

  She sat rigidly in the chair, her mind blessedly empty, her eyes dry and staring. She heard nothing of the lawyer’s continuing message, noticed only absently when the answering machine clicked and the tape began to rewind. When it finished, she closed her eyes for a moment longer and listened to the soft susurration of her own breathing in the quiet room.

  It had been a long message, she realized. Marcus must be out front in the car already, waiting.

  Her eyelids opened on flat, dead circles of icy blue. She rose stiffly from the chair and just stood there for a moment, wondering what to do next.

  The sound of the front door opening and closing in the distance broke the silence in the house. Rebecca’s head lifted slightly as she listened to Marcus’s footsteps moving steadily down the hall.

  ‘Becca?’

  She blinked slowly, thinking that he shouldn’t call her by that name; he had no right to call her that…

  He appeared in the doorway, black hair ruffled, dark brows gathered in puzzlement. ‘I was beginning to wonder if you’d decided not to go after all…’ The sentence trailed away and his frown deepened as he examined her face.

  She stared at him, her expression blank. Go? Go where? To the sheriff’s office? Did she still want to do that? Did she still want to fight to prove to the world that Marcus Flint wasn’t the bastard Charity Lauder claimed he was? Was she so sure any more that he wasn’t?

  ‘Rebecca…?’ He started to take a step into the room.

  She went rigid with panic, her thoughts scrambling in confusion, certain of only one thing: he couldn’t touch her. She couldn’t let him touch her.

  Words tumbled out of her mouth. ‘Your lawyer called. Brett somebody. He wants you to call him. He sounded.upset…’

  Marcus hesitated in mid-stride, eyes alert and narrowed. Rebecca stared into them, tried to see the emotion behind them. Was that suspicion? Worry? Was he thinking that Brett might have said too much?

  ‘I didn’t talk to him,’ she added hurriedly. ‘He just left a message. But I think you should call him right away. I’ll drive myself to the sheriff’s office.’

  He was silent for a moment, still watching her face with that strangely alert expression. ‘I think we’d better talk, Rebecca. There are some things I think you should know.’

  Rebecca opened her mouth, then closed it. I already know! she wanted to scream at him. I know everything! My God, she thought, no wonder he doesn’t care about the new screenplay. As long as Charity’s book isn’t going to be produced, he already has what he wanted. And all it cost him was a few hours, a few kisses, a few moments of pretended passion…

  Her throat ached from the torrent of emotions she was holding back, and for the first time in years she wanted to let it go, let it all out, scream until she was hoarse and let the hurt and the bitterness and the rage explode. A slim remnant of the pride and control she’d nurtured so long rose up and stopped her just in time. If you let one emotion out, the others would follow, and she knew she would do the unforgivable—she would burst into tears, and tears were a weapon that other people could use against you.

  ‘What an ugly duck you are, Rebecca. Can’t you do anything with that hair? Your own father loves us better, you know. He gave us your precious room, didn’t he?’

  The malicious taunts of her stepsisters crept forward through the mists of time, hurting her all over again. How expert they’d been at making her cry; how contemptuous they’d been of her misery; and it was only after a year or two that she’d realized what power her tears gave them. She couldn’t stop the taunting, but she could stop giving them the satisfaction of knowing how much it hurt. That was the secret to dealing with people, of course. Never let them see how much you cared.

  ‘Sit down, Rebecca. There’s something I need to tell you. Something I should have told you this morning.’

  Marcus’s voice startled her out of her reverie and she looked up at him sharply, wondering how long she’d been standing there in silence.

  With a command she had perfected years before, she sent all the pain, all the heartbreak, all the emotions she had freed so recently, skittering backwards into the safety of an impenetrable shell. The shell smiled.

  ‘Can it wait, Marcus?’ she asked pleasantly, and oh, she was proud of that steady voice, of the way she was cocking her head just so, blinking and breathing and doing all the normal things, pretending she was still alive. ‘I really think you should stay here and call that man while I go talk to Deputy Thomas. It shouldn’t take long. We can talk when I get back.’

  Even now, dammit, even now when she knew precisely what kind of a man he was and how cruelly he had used her, his eyes reached out to twist her heart.

  ‘No. It can’t wait. It’s too important…’

  The shell’s smile broadened sweetly, briefly, and then she was grabbing her jacket and purse, breezing past him in the doorway, hurrying down the hall, calling merrily over her shoulder, ‘Well, it will just have to, Marcus, because I’m late. But we’ll talk later, I promise.’

  She heard the deep boom of her na
me chasing her down the hall, out the door, but by then she was running for her own little rental car, just behind the big, warm Rolls-Royce rumbling in front of the house, digging in her purse for the keys.

  So fast—God, she hadn’t known she could run so fast—but already she was in the cold car, standing on the accelerator, tires throwing wet snow into the air as she raced past the house where Marcus had just burst out of the door.

  She felt that sick, false smile still frozen on her face, and thought she must look like a madwoman. Still, she managed to effect a nonchalant wave in Marcus’s direction as she pointed the little car’s nose toward the long hill that climbed up into the woods. Only when she was safely in the shadows of the trees did she realize she was shivering uncontrollably.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  FOR a time she drove with the mindless focus of a robot, her thoughts admitting only the sensory information she needed to keep the car on the road.

  Suddenly the right front tire bounced hard in a pothole she hadn’t noticed, jarring her out of that safe, gray place where her mind was hiding.

  What am I doing? she wondered. Where am I going?

  And then, before the tears that suddenly stung the backs of her eyes could spill, she swallowed hard, eased up on the accelerator, and forced herself to think.

  You have two choices, Rebecca, she told herself firmly. Either head for Burlington and hop on the first plane for California, or finish the job you came here to do.

  Her mouth turned down, lower lip quivering at the thought of continuing to work on the screenplay. How could she possibly do that? How could, she talk to strangers about Marcus, how could she spend weeks writing about Marcus, torturing herself with humiliating, painful memories of what she’d been stupid enough to think she’d found? And why the hell should she?

  She sighed miserably and straightened in the uncomfortable seat, trying not to think about the sudden bleakness of the years that stretched before her. For a time she’d had the promise of everything she’d ever wanted, but in the end all that had done was make reality almost unbearable.