by Diana Palmer
Regan stood quietly in the center of the living room, turning as Kenna joined him.
“You’ll be delighted to hear that Denny was prepared to commit mayhem on your behalf,” he said pleasantly, raising his glass in a salute.
She blinked. “Why?”
He moved close and touched her lower lip with his forefinger. “Because of that,” he said. “He thinks I was manhandling you.”
“With reason, I’m afraid,” she reminded him. “Did you tell Denny why...?”
“And spoil his disgusting suspicions? I did not.” He drained the glass and set it down on the bar. “I’d sleep with my doors locked, if I were you. Margo’s sweet disposition went into eclipse.”
“I noticed that,” she said with a faint smile. “Denny was really worried?” she persisted, brightening.
“He was worried,” he said, his tone harsh. “I’d better get you home. It’s late.”
“You could call a cab,” she suggested, moving to pick up her shawl and purse from the sofa.
“You’re not going home alone,” he said firmly. “No city is that safe.”
She took one look at his set features and decided not to argue. He was quite capable of carrying her down to the lobby.
He drove her home without speaking, keeping the radio on to fill the silence. Her eyes darted to his grim face, as she tried to reconcile the hostile, taciturn man she worked for with the ardent, expert lover who could have carried her unprotesting to his bed less than an hour before. She could still taste him on her lips, feel the tender brush of his fingers on her bare skin. The sensations memory aroused shocked her. She hardly recognized the passionate woman who’d begged for his hands on her untouched body. So much for her fine principles. They’d collapsed at the first temptation. All at once, she wondered how it would have been with Denny and was surprised to find that she couldn’t imagine being touched that way by the man she was supposedly in love with.
They stood apart on the elevator, and he glared at the closed doors as if they stood between him and salvation. Not one word passed his lips all the way to the door of her apartment.
She was bending down to the doorknob trying to see where to put the key when he took it away from her with a disgusted sound.
“If you’d wear your damned glasses, you’d be able to see where to put the key, you blind little bat,” he growled.
“I could tell you where to put the key,” she returned hotly, straightening to glare up in his general direction.
“Go ahead,” he invited.
She drew in a steadying breath. “Good night, counselor,” she said.
“Good? Not very, Cinderella,” he replied shortly. “You lost Prince Charming somewhere along the way.”
“And ended up with the beast,” she shot back.
He stared down at her, and she caught a glimpse of aching loneliness in his hard face before he quickly erased it. “Story of my life,” he murmured half-humorously. “Good night, Cinders.”
He turned and walked away, and tears burned her eyes. She started to call to him, just as the elderly little woman down the hall opened her door and came out to take her garbage to the chute. Kenna sighed and turned back into her lonely apartment.
She made herself a cup of hot cocoa and paced the living room while she drank it. What was the matter with her, for heaven’s sake? Why should she feel so miserable about calling Regan a beast? He was a beast!
A beast. She sighed. Sure, a beast who’d bent over backward to help her improve her appearance, to act slinky and seductive and sophisticated so that she could attract Denny. And tonight she’d attracted Denny, and that didn’t matter nearly so much as the fact that she’d deliberately gone out of her way to hurt Regan. That crack about his late wife had been utterly horrible. No wonder he couldn’t bear to talk about it.
She moved toward the phone and stared angrily down at it. He was probably asleep already, this was insane! But all the same, her fingers searched through the telephone directory for his number and dialed it.
Her hand clenched around the still-warm mug of hot cocoa while the phone rang once, twice, three times....
“Hello?” came a familiar, gruff voice over the line.
She opened her mouth and tried to speak, failed and cleared her throat. “Regan?” she murmured.
There was a pause. “Kenna?” he asked softly.
“I don’t think you’re a beast at all,” she said with equal softness and put the receiver down.
She stared at it for a long moment before she put down the mug, turned out the lights and went to bed.
Chapter Six
Sunday promised to be an ordeal. Kenna came home from church in no particular hurry, with nothing more to look forward to than more of her own company. She wandered down the street, staring up at the tall skyscrapers, her eyes drifting to the occasional oasis of trees that graced downtown Atlanta. It was odd how the downtown area had a suburban feeling to it. She constantly ran into people she knew, like the secretaries in the offices below hers and the owner of the small grocery store on the ground floor of her apartment building and the manager of the small boutique which was also among the businesses located there. It wasn’t as lonely an existence as she’d once thought it might be when she moved to Atlanta from the small town where she’d grown up.
She dragged her feet, drinking in the sweet spring air, watching buds just beginning to pop out on the tall oak and maple trees, and the smaller dogwoods. The dogwoods would be in full blossom before too long, just in time for the city festival that bore their name.
With a final wistful sigh at the sight of a couple holding hands and sitting on a stretch of concrete bench along the street, she went into her apartment building. At least she felt good today, in her new lavender-and-white-patterned dress, with its full skirt and neatly ruffled little neckline and puffy sleeves. She felt young and womanly all at once, gorgeous, a model. She made a leap into the elevator, whirling to push the button for her floor. She leaned dreamily back against the rail. Glasses or no glasses, old girl, you have got something, she told herself. She grinned. Confidence, perhaps. Maybe that accounted for this buoyant feeling. When she got to her apartment, she’d clean out her closet and get rid of those dowdy old clothes she’d been wearing for the past two years. That ought to keep her occupied.
The elevator stopped and she danced off it, her skirts flying against her long, lovely legs as she turned toward her apartment. She stopped so suddenly that she almost fell forward, and her heart jumped into her throat.
Regan was leaning back against the wall, brooding again, his eyes staring straight ahead at her door. One hand was in the pocket of his gray slacks, the other was holding a smoking cigarette. He was wearing a blue blazer with an open-necked white shirt, and his hair was rumpled...and it suddenly occurred to Kenna that she was falling in love with him. The discovery froze her where she stood. That notion had to go, and quickly, she told her heart. No mutinies around here, not when she was about to catch Denny’s eye and live happily ever after. Cinderella didn’t fall in love with the fairy godfather, it wasn’t allowed.
As if he sensed her uneasy scrutiny, Regan’s head turned and he stared at her. He was a good three doors away from where she was standing, but he might have been beside her. Her heart ran wild.
He straightened up as she forced her legs to carry her to him, and he smiled. And all at once, the sun came out and everything burst into glorious bloom.
“Hi,” he murmured, giving her the once-over.
“Hi,” she replied, sounding breathless.
“I thought you might be at loose ends. I’m driving down to see my parents. I thought you might like to come with me. Denny and Margo are going to be there,” he added with a careless smile.
Something froze in blossom, but she erased the coldness from her eyes a
nd smiled. “I’d like that very much. Should I change?”
“That’s up to you. Personally,” he murmured, studying her closely, “I like you this way.”
“I might need a sweater,” she said, unlocking her door. “I won’t be a minute. Want to come in?”
He shook his head, disappointing her. “I’ll wait out here. I don’t expect it’s going to take that long, is it?”
“No, of course not,” she said quickly, and rushed in to get her sweater. Apparently he didn’t want to be alone with her for any length of time unless they were in a car, and that suited her fine. Why should she want to risk a repeat of last night, after all? And Denny was the quarry, not Regan. She repeated that to herself as she tugged a white sweater from her closet, ran a comb through her hair and hurried back to him.
“Does Denny know we’re coming?” she asked Regan when they were inside the Porsche and speeding north toward Gainesville, where his father and stepmother lived.
He laughed softly. “Yes, he knows we’re coming,” he murmured, glancing toward her. “So does Margo, worse luck. I hope you’re up to it, darling. You’ll need your wits around that lady.”
Darling! Why did the sound of that casual endearment on his lips make her heart run double-time? She shifted restlessly in the seat.
“What would you have done if I hadn’t been home?” she asked.
“Checked the hospitals,” he murmured, tongue-in-cheek.
“Thanks so much, you do wonders for my self-esteem,” she grumbled, and her lips pouted.
He cocked an eyebrow. “Broke the truce, did I? All right, I’ll reform. You look lovely, Miss Dean, and if you weren’t hot and bothered by my stepbrother, I think I’d park this car and kiss you until you couldn’t think straight.”
She found it extremely hard to breathe after that rash admission. In her lap, she had a stranglehold on her purse. “Would you?” she asked in a high-pitched tone.
“Yes,” he said shortly, “I would. And you’d let me.”
Her eyes darted out the window to escape his. She didn’t say anything because she couldn’t.
“Why did you call me last night?” he asked harshly.
“Because I felt ashamed of myself,” she ground out. “I always seem to say the wrong thing to you, at the wrong time. You’ve gone out of your way to help me, and I’ve done nothing but fight you.”
He crushed out the cigarette he’d been smoking. “I’ve made you fight me,” he said after a minute. “I put your back up the day I walked into the office, and I’ve done my damnedest to keep it that way.”
The confession startled her. She half turned in her seat and stared at him across the console. “Why?”
He met her gaze levelly as he stopped at an intersection. “You know why,” he said coldly.
Her face flamed as he said the words, and she couldn’t have looked away from him to save her life. It was the most curious sensation, like being shocked. A jolt of electricity seemed to have surged from his vibrant body to hers.
“Kenna,” he growled. They were on a country road, with no traffic anywhere around them. All at once he reached out, catching her by the back of the head, and pulled her mouth under his. “Come here, damn it,” he muttered. The kiss was a wild sharing of mouths and tongues that blazed up like a forest fire in the sudden stillness.
His hand released the steering wheel to catch her under the arms and lift her as close as he could get her, despite the bucket seats and the confined space. Her breasts were crushed against his blue blazer, and his mouth hurt, a sweet, aching hurt that she wanted more than air.
He drew away a minute later, his breath shuddering against her lips. His eyes were glazed with desire, as she knew her own must be, because she wanted him suddenly, shockingly.
His nostrils flared as he searched her face, blind to the pickup truck crossing the intersection to the right of them, its occupants openly curious.
“I want you,” he said curtly, putting it into words.
“I know,” she whispered, her voice breathless and soft.
His hands contracted around her for an instant before he eased her back into her seat and took a deep breath, gripping the steering wheel hard. He lifted his head, glancing behind them at an approaching car.
He took another breath and put the car in gear, easing across the intersection and then speeding up again, changing gears with smooth ease. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and handed it to her.
“How about lighting that for me?” he asked quietly.
“May I...have one, too?”
He handed her another one, with a curious glance. “Do you smoke?”
“No,” she confessed. “I just need something.”
“Am I that potent?” he murmured with a forced laugh.
“Don’t joke about it, please,” she murmured as she lit his cigarette and handed it to him, turning back to light her own.
“I have to,” he said. “Physical attraction is a damned poor basis for a relationship. I don’t want involvement. I’ve had all I can stand of it for one lifetime.”
She sat back against the seat, tempted to deny what she was feeling. But she couldn’t. Having it out in the open was the best way to cope with it, after all.
“And you’re not the type for an affair,” he added curtly, his eyes pinning hers for an instant. “There’s no way I’m going to take a virgin into my bed just to satisfy a temporary hunger.”
She dropped her eyes to the heavy rise and fall of his chest. Where the shirt was open, thick black hair showed, and she remembered desperately wanting to open his shirt and touch him there the night before. She hadn’t, though, and probably it was just as well. Her eyes turned away from his sensuous masculinity.
“Thank you for that,” she said quietly. She took a careful draw from the cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke without inhaling. “I feel very vulnerable with you. I didn’t expect it to be like that....”
“Neither did I,” he said. He turned onto another country road and they passed through miles of open country with only an occasional house or service station or country store. He laughed shortly. “You were a new experience for me. I can’t remember a woman ever crying while we were intimate.”
She stared out at the passing landscape, the cigarette hanging forgotten between her fingers. “You’re very experienced,” she murmured.
“And you’re very inexperienced. My God, it was sweet,” he said half-under his breath, glancing toward her. “Something I’ll remember all my life.”
Her eyes lifted to his and moved quickly away. “So will I,” she confessed.
He drew in a slow breath and stared straight ahead at the road. “I’m so damned noble,” he muttered. “All I need is a white horse and a halo.”
She managed a smile. “Or a unicorn,” she suggested.
“They were rumored to be fond of virgins, weren’t they?” he asked, smiling back. “Why aren’t you one of those modern women who take the pill and notch their bedposts? It would make my life so much easier right now.”
Mine, too, she thought, but she wouldn’t admit it. He didn’t want an answer anyway, so she said nothing.
“Come on, talk,” he said after a minute, his cigarette sending up curls of smoke. “Are you afraid of sex?”
She curled up in her seat as far as the shoulder harness would allow and shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I just don’t like temporary things. I want a home and children...” She glanced at him apprehensively.
“Don’t pull your punches,” he said quietly, meeting her apologetic gaze. “I did my grieving when it happened. It still hurts, but not as much, and I’m not that sensitive about chance remarks. Except,” he added with a rueful smile, “deliberately cutting ones. As you found out.”
“I understand now why i
t hurts to talk about her,” she said gently. “I won’t ever ask again.”
He crushed out the cigarette and laid his hand on the console, palm up. “Give me your hand.”
Without thinking, she laid her free one in that warm, callused grasp, and felt his fingers close snugly around hers. Tingles of pleasure worked their way through her body, and involuntarily, she increased the pressure.
“I’ll tell you all about Jessica one day,” he said quietly. “We’ll get together one New Year’s Eve and share a bottle of Irish whiskey and cry on each other’s shoulders.”
“I can just picture that,” she murmured drily. “You, crying on anybody’s shoulder.”
“Being a man doesn’t make me superhuman, honey,” he reminded her. “I did my share of crying after the crash. I’m not ashamed of it, either.”
“I didn’t think you would be. It takes a strong man to cry,” she said. Her fingers tangled in his.
“We can’t be lovers,” he said quietly.
“No,” she agreed in a whisper.
His fingers contracted. “Then be my friend, Kenna.”
She smiled, feeling a sudden urge to burst into tears, because she wanted more than that lukewarm arrangement. But if it was all that was available, it would have to do. After all, she wanted Denny...didn’t she?
“How about your sister-in-law?” she teased.
His face hardened, darkened. He let her hand go.
“That reminds me, we’d better come up with some plans for next weekend.”
“Why?”
“Because Margo’s going to be in Argentina for the next two weeks, and Dad’s having an anniversary party for my stepmother. You’re sure to be invited, and I don’t want Denny having it too easy.” He glanced at her with a cool smile. “He likes competing with me, you see. Anything I want, he wants.”
“Is that why he took up law?” she asked.
He nodded. “He’s very competitive. I’ve got a long jump on him. That rankles. Especially now, when Dad’s thinking of retiring from the computer corporation he owns.”