The Lady and the Lion

by Kay Hooper

  Keith left the hotel earlier than usual and went to the marina, becoming that other man because he was untroubled by a sweet voice on a dark balcony, by unfamiliar feelings and troubling thoughts. The man who called himself Duncan wore his expensive silk suits, diamond rings, and Rolex with careless assurance and laughed often, though his eyes remained hard and enigmatic. Duncan owned a boat named Ladama and a Lear jet, both with Colombian registry. Almost every night he threw a party on his boat, one glittering affair after another where only the best food and wine were served.

  But no drugs. Duncan had told Guy Wellman, a wealthy and powerful businessman who’d attended last night’s party, that it wasn’t wise for a man such as himself to let it be known he had access to drugs. Not wise at all. There was no need to advertise the fact and invite inconvenient attention from the law, he’d said with a laugh.

  On this evening, at a small, rented apartment halfway between his hotel and the boat, Keith became Duncan, slipping into the skin of his alter ego with the ease of nightly practice, and thoroughly submerging his own personality. He moved among his guests when they arrived at the boat, expertly nursing one drink while giving the appearance of drinking a great deal, talking to everyone without saying anything of importance, his reckless laugh heard often. As the night wore on he became, outwardly, even more careless, betting and losing ten thousand dollars on a single throw of a pair of undoubtedly loaded dice one of his guests produced, and paying his losses blithely.

  No one could have guessed he was playing a carefully constructed role, and certainly no one could have looked beneath that glittering shell to the fury, bitterness, and grief that had marked its creation.

  It was near midnight when Guy Wellman arrived at the boat, bringing with him a man “Duncan” had requested to meet. The party was incredibly noisy by then, the introduction almost shouted, but Keith heard it clearly. Offering his hand to Vincent Arturo, he cordially greeted the man who had destroyed his family.

  —

  At four A.M. Keith let himself into the silent hotel suite. Guided only by the faint bedside lamp, he made his way through the sitting room to his bedroom, where he undressed. He took a long, hot shower, washing away the remains of that skin he wore nightly and its taint of smoke and corruption. When he at last felt reasonably clean, he donned a robe and went out into the dark sitting room.

  He found a bottle of juice in the suite’s wet bar, drinking from it as he sat down in a chair and tried to unwind. His gaze strayed to the closed balcony doors, but he was so tired, so utterly bone weary that he couldn’t even swear at himself.

  And there was, besides, something else. During this long, tense night, he had realized just how fragile his hold on sanity was. He had politely greeted a man he wanted to strangle with his bare hands, and in that moment he had known how terribly easy it would be to give in to the rage. It wasn’t the way he wanted his justice, not with blood on his hands. The urge to release his savage emotions had shaken him badly.

  He’d been so close to killing in fury with his own hands that, even now, he wasn’t sure what had stopped him. He was even less sure that whatever it had been would stop him next time.

  Keith stared at the balcony doors, seeing what he didn’t want to see and understanding. He needed an anchor, something to hold him centered when all the wild emotions yanked at him. He hadn’t planned for it, hadn’t realized it would be necessary. But it was, he saw now. Too much alone in this, too disconnected, he needed a reminder of sanity to keep him from making the all-too-easy step over the edge.

  It wouldn’t take much to pull him back, he thought. Not much. A sweet voice in the darkness talking of sane things, a soft laugh, the whisper of silk. A distraction, yes, but one this side of madness, to keep him rooted here. He knew it was dangerous, but the greater danger lay in what he might do if he forgot what peace and pleasure felt like.

  She probably wouldn’t be there, he thought. She’d probably checked out and gone home, back to the man who wanted her to be with him. The gentleness in her voice as much as her words had told Keith she would go a long way to avoid hurting anyone deliberately.

  And tonight, he had felt the urge to kill.

  He got up and set the empty juice bottle aside, crossing the room to the balcony doors and opening them. He went out into the cool darkness and settled onto the chaise, looking straight ahead without seeing, but listening intently. And as soon as he heard her, he spoke.

  “Good morning.”

  “Good morning,” she responded a bit breathlessly. “I thought you must have gone. Yesterday, I mean.”

  Keith rested his head back against the chaise, feeling his tense muscles begin to unknot. “No, there was…something I had to do.” I had to stay away from you. But I can’t.

  “You sound tired,” she said, the concern in her voice obvious.

  “Too tired to sleep. I need to unwind.” He wondered, vaguely, if she felt the effect of this as strongly as he did, if she realized how easily they perceived each other’s moods—not as strangers, but as friends.

  “Do you want to talk?” she asked, a bit hesitant.

  Closing his eyes, Keith said, “Your voice is very soothing. If you wouldn’t mind—?”

  One of her soft laughs escaped her. “I don’t mind, but you might. You’re so easy to talk to that I probably won’t know when to shut up. Just tell me when, and I will.”

  He smiled slightly. “Agreed.”

  “What do you want me to talk about?”

  “Anything you like.” Anything sane. “Tell me if you’ve found any answers for those dawn questions.”

  “All I’m sure of,” she said wryly, “is that I’ve found more questions. But I did call London, and I told him I wouldn’t be coming home.”

  “For good?” Keith asked, only then aware that he wanted her to say yes.

  “Surprisingly enough, that’s what I said. He was…stunned. He says we have to talk, but I told him I needed time to myself. I don’t know how patient he’ll be.” She paused, then laughed suddenly.

  He was intrigued by the sound. “What?”

  “Oh, it’s absurd! I guess I felt a little self-conscious before, and didn’t want to explain. I mean, well, I’m twenty-eight years old; I hardly wanted to say that Daddy had called and ordered me home.”

  Keith felt a jolt of relief, the depth of which disturbed him. But he managed to say lightly, “Understandable. But there was more, wasn’t there? Another reason. You didn’t want me to think you might be available?”

  “That was part of it,” she answered frankly. “So many men seem to think every single woman is looking for involvement. Sometimes it’s very annoying. But for some reason, I wanted you to know the truth. It is my relationship with my father we’ve been talking about.”

  “I see.”

  “You aren’t offended?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Good,” she said with a sigh.

  Keith knew an impulse to ask her name or offer his, but ignored it. If he could keep the peculiar relationship between them like this, dawn meetings on a dark balcony, then perhaps he could limit the danger to him—and to her. If he could control at least the depth of this…

  “In a way,” she said reflectively, “you remind me of my father.”

  “God forbid,” Keith said before he could stop himself.

  There was a startled silence on the other side of the screen, and then she said, “I meant the tone of your voice sometimes. And your perception.”

  “Your father is perceptive?” Keith swore inwardly, telling himself grimly to keep his distance, to remain detached and impersonal.

  “About everyone except me. Do you think that’s common between fathers and daughters?”

  Unbidden, thoughts of his own father and his sister darted through his mind, so painful they might have been knives. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “My sister…always said Dad was her best friend.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He
r voice was soft, and so expressive that Keith had to swallow hard before he could speak. “For what?”

  “Reminding you of something painful. Sometimes I think people should carry maps with the sore places in their lives marked out in red ink.”

  “Here there be dragons,” Keith said.

  “Yes. And then we’d all know to keep out.”

  Unless you’re invited. He didn’t say it. He couldn’t say it, even though he was finding it impossible to remain impersonal and detached. Her voice pulled at him. He opened his eyes and stared at the graying horizon, resisting; if she pulled him too far back from the edge, he’d never be able to do what he had to do.

  If she got too close…

  “I’ve decided to take up painting,” she said lightly, having obviously judged the worth of his silence and realized she’d been warned off. “I was pretty good at it in school. Maybe it won’t come to anything, but I want to try.”

  “That’s the important thing,” he murmured. “To try.”

  The conversation went on in the same vein for a few more minutes, casual but cautious, and by the time the sun rose she had gone back inside. The interlude, as strangely painful as it had become, nonetheless left Keith feeling more grounded, more securely connected to his own reason. Somehow, she was able to do that for him. He didn’t know how, but he knew it was something he couldn’t afford to give up.

  Every morning, they met and talked during the quiet transition of dawn. For the most part, they were relaxed, but at odd moments something else crept between them and caused one or the other to back off warily, to pause and change the subject. Still, the conversations wove a curious web of intimacy between them that deepened day by day.

  For nearly a week, Keith found what he needed on the dark balcony. But as the days passed he discovered his thoughts were turning to her more and more often, even at night when all his concentration should have been focused on the role he played. He tried to block the thoughts out, but it grew more difficult with each passing day and night. Even the sure knowledge that she wanted no involvement didn’t seem to make a difference. It did no good to tell himself that she seemed satisfied, that she had no desire for a closer relationship. There were no demands in this, no expectations between them; what they had was as transitory as the dawn itself—and yet just as constant.

  He might have been able to be content with that, at least for a while longer. She had become his transition between the two lives he was leading, enabling him to keep his balance. He dared not risk losing her. But then one night, the demands of “Duncan’s” role went on past dawn, culminating in a subtle game of verbal cat-and-mouse between him and Vincent Arturo that strained Keith to the breaking point.

  By the time he returned to his hotel and showered, the sun was well up, and the safety-valve of the quiet morning conversations had been denied to him at a time when it was badly needed. He was days away from seeing an end to it, one way or another, and the tension inside him was so great he felt as if he might explode.

  If he had made a different choice, if he’d gone directly to bed instead of stepping out onto his sunny balcony, perhaps everything would have ended differently.

  But he did go out to the balcony, knowing she wouldn’t be there, wondering if he might see her on the beach. He leaned against the wall and looked down, searching intently. Far up the beach, her red hair shining like a beacon, she was walking along the high-water mark back toward the hotel. It was likely there were other redheads in the hotel, possibly several who ran or walked on the beach in the morning, but he knew her.

  Keith went back inside his suite and got dressed. He didn’t think about what he was doing until he was crossing the lobby toward the beach, and by then the awareness could only slow his steps—not stop his need for her. He found the path that led to the beach and waited there beneath a curving palm.

  Just a look, he told himself reassuringly. To see her face, her eyes. That was all. She’d walk right past him, a stranger, but knowing what she looked like would substitute for their missed conversation this morning.

  He wondered, almost idly, if he had finally gone over the edge.

  He hadn’t expected the instant jolt of familiarity he experienced at the sight of her coming up the path toward him. And he hadn’t expected her to stop, no more than a few feet away, her eyes locked with his and holding a shocked expression. He hadn’t expected her to be so beautiful.

  Beautiful. A pale word to describe her. Her bright hair was a silky mass of loose red curls falling below her shoulders, framing a face so exquisite it stopped his heart. There was no conventional prettiness in those delicate features, nothing of the girl next door, and none of the glamorous “perfection” of a high-fashion model. She possessed the kind of singular beauty that no one, man or woman, would ever question or debate, a rare combination of bone structure, coloring, and features that marked her as a woman who would be lovely all the days of her life.

  Keith saw that, acknowledged it vaguely to himself. But it wasn’t her overall beauty holding him spellbound, it was her eyes. They were a color he’d never seen before, a pale, almost iridescent green, their depth and clarity so great that they were literally hypnotic.

  The sweet voice that had pulled at him combined now with those remarkable eyes. Yes, he understood why her father would consider her an asset. People would talk to her. People would tell her things they wouldn’t mention to another soul. The realization went through Keith like a knife.

  Abruptly, he turned away.

  Erin stood perfectly still, her heart racing. When he turned away, she almost darted forward in protest, but his jerky movement stopped her. He stood with his back to her, his broad shoulders tense, as if he wanted badly to go on but couldn’t somehow.

  He might have been any age between thirty and forty; his thick, night-black hair was lightly frosted with silver but his lean face was unlined. He was not handsome, but any woman would choose to look at him rather than at beefcake photos in a magazine. Once seen, his face would never be forgotten. His features were strong, from his high cheekbones and aquiline nose to the stubborn jaw and slightly cleft chin. Violet eyes were hooded by heavy lids, enigmatic but curiously brilliant, and set beneath flying brows that lent his hard face a saturnine air at odds with the generous curve of his mouth.

  She knew who he was, even though everything about him was unexpected. Erin was a tall woman, but he towered over her. She guessed he was at least three inches over six feet. And he had the imposing build to match his height. The jeans and casual knit shirt he wore did nothing to disguise commanding shoulders, a massive chest, hard, narrow waist and hips, and powerful thighs. His vitality and force were obvious, as was the fact that heredity and an active life had given him a natural strength few men could command no matter how many hours they worked out in gyms.

  Time had seemed to stop. It could have been hours or seconds only, a minute perhaps before he turned slowly back around to face her.

  If, at that moment, Erin had been asked to define the word dangerous, she would have pointed unhesitatingly at him. Not because he was so obviously powerful physically, but because she could feel the danger in him, like an aura that was almost visible. She had felt that only once before in her life, while gazing in fascination at an adult male lion through the bars of his cage; a beautiful creature, seemingly so lazy and unthreatening, but holding in his eyes the look of an unpredictable beast that could be caged but never tamed.

  This lion wasn’t caged, but despite her awareness of danger Erin felt no fear of him. And she wondered if he felt it, too, this strange bond between them, a thing of instinct and emotion rather than knowledge or understanding.

  “Good morning,” he said, his deep voice the way it had been that first morning, a bit guarded. “I’m Keith Donovan.”

  There was no need at all to add explanations, she thought. Names and faces might be strange, but they knew each other. “Erin Prentice,” she said, her own voice a little husky.

&n
bsp; He half nodded. “Will you have breakfast with me, Erin Prentice?”

  Fearless of him or not, she should have at least hesitated, but it never crossed her mind to do so. “Yes, I will.”

  He smiled, the curve of his mouth softening his hard face into one that was surprisingly charming. “I hoped you would. The terrace restaurant here serves the best food. Shall we?” He didn’t offer to take her hand or arm, but merely gestured slightly.

  Suddenly conscious of her windblown hair, baggy sweatpants, and overlarge T-shirt, Erin said, “I should change—”

  “You must know you’re beautiful,” he said.

  She felt a faint shock, not because of what he said but of how he said it. He sounded matter of fact, if not indifferent. Taking little notice of her own appearance when she was alone, Erin had nonetheless been taught all her life to show her best face to the world, and since it had been drummed into her that her face and smile were her best—if not only—assets, this man’s dispassionate acknowledgment of her looks was as rare as it was welcome.

  She closed the distance between them slowly, at a loss to know how she could respond to his statement. He didn’t appear to expect a response, however, and they walked across the lobby to the terrace restaurant in silence.

  It wasn’t until they were seated on the terrace, once more in the sunshine, that he spoke again. “Did I offend you? I didn’t mean to.”

  Erin shook her head a bit helplessly. “How could you have offended me?”

  His smile dawned again. “I might have been implying that you were vain and had to know how beautiful you are. I wasn’t, though. It’s just that I imagine you’ve been hearing compliments on your looks all your life.”

  She was granted a few moments to pull herself together after that curiously impassive statement, since the waiter came to pour coffee and take their orders. Grateful that he wasn’t the kind of man who automatically ordered food for his companion, she gave the waiter her order and then watched Keith as he did the same.

  When they were alone again, she said lightly, “It’s only a matter of good genes.”