by Diana Palmer
“You don’t know me at all.”
“No?” A wisp of a smile touched his chiseled mouth as he stood there, looking down at her, oblivious to the interested glances of passing shoppers. “I know that you like to go barefoot on the carpet when you think no one’s looking. You like books by Kahlil Gibran, and Debussy, and sunsets over Lake Lanier. You speak French, you don’t approve of love affairs, you’re twenty-three years old, and you love children. My God, Dana, what else do I need to know about you?”
She gaped at him, stunned by the scope of his knowledge. “You didn’t add that I was a cheat, a liar, a loose woman…!” she cried, shaken.
His hand came up to stop the words as they formed on her lips. For a long time, his dark eyes stared straight down into hers, until her heart began to race and her knees threatened to melt under her.
“I know the truth now,” he said gently, “I know how very innocent you are, little taffy cat. Do you know, Dana, your eyes are the exact shade of chestnuts when they first break out of the hull? And that your mouth…” His eyes caressed it with an intensity that burned her. “God, if we weren’t surrounded by half of Atlanta, I’d kiss it now…!” he whispered huskily.
She ducked her head, her cold nervous hands resting momentarily against his gray suitcoat while she got her balance back.
He laughed softly, taking one of her soft hands in his big one to squeeze it. “Come on, little witch,” he murmured deeply. “I’m starving.”
She followed him into the cozy little creperie, with its wooden tables and benches and exquisite art prints on the walls, her hand still held tightly in his.
She tugged half-heartedly at the warm clasp, but he wouldn’t let go.
“Adrian, what will people think?” she asked anxiously.
A short, harsh chuckle burst from his mouth as he seated her. “Probably,” he said with unmistakable bitterness, “that I’m taking my daughter to lunch.”
She met his cynical gaze squarely as he stood beside her, and the look on that dark face made her throw caution to the winds.
“I’ve never known a man I felt less daughterly toward,” she said softly.
He drew a sharp breath. As he sat down, his face hardened to stone, his eyes became fierce and blackly burning as they met hers. “God, what a place to pick to tell me about it!” he whispered in a voice thick with feeling. “Damn you…!”
She flinched at the fury in his voice, puzzled by it, frightened by it. She averted her eyes to the waitress as a menu was handed to her. Adrian ordered coffee first, in a voice that was curt even for him. She didn’t speak, giving him time to cool off, wondering vaguely what she’d done to create that terrible fury in him.
“What do you see that you like?” Adrian asked in a deep, taut voice.
“This chicken and broccoli crepe looks good,” she replied, “and the one with two kinds of cheeses. And, oh, the strawberry crepe with cream…!”
The waitress came back with two steaming mugs of coffee and Adrian gave her the order and the menus. Then she was gone, and the full force of those stormy, angry eyes was on Dana’s face again. Without a word, he took a small package from his pocket and placed it in front of her.
It was a jeweler’s box, and she stared at it numbly, her lips parted on questions she couldn’t ask.
“Will you open it?” he asked impatiently.
With trembling fingers she picked it up and lifted the lid. There, against the soft white satin, was a gemburst of emeralds and diamonds exquisitely mounted in a thin gold bracelet. “Oh…my goodness…for…not for me?” she stammered, her eyes stunned as they met his.
“Happy birthday, Dana,” he said softly.
Tears filled her soft brown eyes, washing over the reddening rims, trickling down her flushed cheeks in a flood of emotion, her mouth trembling with the intensity of her feelings. He’d remembered her birthday!
Eight
It had been so long since anyone had wished her a happy birthday, or given her a present…
His big hand reached across the table and grasped hers in a warm, strong clasp, his fingers gently caressing. With his free hand, he reached in his pocket and handed her a handkerchief.
“Dry your eyes, Persephone,” he said gently. “You’ll water down that good coffee.”
She nodded, wiping her face with the handkerchief with one hand while the other held on to Adrian’s as if it were a lifeline.
“Thank you, Adrian, it’s beautiful,” she murmured with a watery smile. “It’s the most beautiful present I’ve ever had. How did you know?”
“You told me when we were talking the other night,” he said. His eyes probed hers. “Seventeen years between us now, Persephone. Too many.”
He let her hand go and reached for his coffee. “I hope you’re hungry,” he said casually, as the waitress approached with plates of steaming crepes. Dana spent the rest of the lunch alternately eating and staring at the bracelet. But as she considered the expense it must have entailed, her conscience began to nag her.
In the car, she fiddled with the jeweler’s box nervously. “Adrian?”
“What?” he asked curtly, his eyes on some distant point outside the window.
“I can’t accept this.”
His dark eyes jerked back to her face, pinning her. “Why not? I hadn’t planned on asking you to pay for it, little girl,” he growled.
She flinched at his tone. “That’s not what I meant,” she said weakly. “It’s just that it’s so expensive…”
“How the hell do you know it isn’t costume jewelry?” he demanded. His eyes studied her insolently. “What makes you think I’d consider you worth the real thing?”
She closed her eyes against the pain that those careless words had caused. For a little while, all the old angers had been put aside. But he was bringing them back with a vengeance.
With trembling fingers, she lifted the box and handed it to him, without looking up. “You’d better have it back,” she said in a voice like shattered glass.
He took it from her and casually stuck it in his pocket. “I’ll give it to Fayre,” he said carelessly. “She likes trinkets.”
She turned her attention to the landscape passing by the window, tears brimming over in her hurt eyes. It had started out to be such a nice birthday…
“Are you trying to drive me out of my mind?” he asked in a silky, cold voice. “Why the hell are you crying?”
She blinked back the tears, anger coming to her rescue. She threw a sparkling, furious glance in his general direction.
“I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction of tears, Mr. Devereaux,” she said icily. “You had me on my knees once, but don’t ever expect to have me there again. I’ll stick out these six months if I have to chew nails, I’ll live for them to end!”
“That makes two of us,” he growled under his breath.
The strained silence lasted all the way to the next stop on the tour—one of Adrian’s sprawling manufacturing companies on the outskirts of the city. It was a hot day, and the haze of pollution enveloped the city like gauze. In the comfortable, air-conditioned Rolls, Dana had hardly noticed the heat. But she felt it with a vengeance as she walked beside Adrian toward the massive one-level factory through an arch with Devereaux Textiles engraved on it.
Adrian lit a cigarette as they walked, his first in her company that day, and blew out a cloud of gray smoke.
“We employ four hundred people here,” he said, gesturing toward the brick exterior of the building. “We recently added a new air conditioning system to bring us up to par with the federal standards—it cuts down on the noise. Have you ever been inside a manufacturing plant?”
She shook her head. “I’ve always wondered how clothes were made, though.”
“You’ll get a good look at it in here.” He held the glass door open for her and she felt the temperature dropping pleasantly as the air conditioning washed over her burning skin.
“That innovative production method…” she que
ried.
“Reporter to the sole of your shoes, aren’t you?” he asked. Glittering malice was in his eyes as he looked down into hers.
She glared back at him. “It’s kept me from going on welfare for a number of years,” she replied coolly.
He turned away with a muttered curse. “I’ll show it to you before we leave,” he said curtly. “First we’ll stop by Olsen’s office—he’s the plant manager.”
Jack Olsen was tall and balding, very pleasant and obviously proud of his plant. Beside him was a slender, blond man with a quick smile and laughing blue eyes.
“This is Patrick Melbourne—Pat to most of us,” Olsen said, introducing him. “He was a reporter before we enticed him into our personnel office with luxuries like real two-week vacations and an unlisted phone number.”
Dana laughed as she hadn’t laughed in years, the sound of it like silver bells, and Adrian glowered at it.
She took Pat Melbourne’s hand with pleasure. “From one escapee to another,” she told him, “congratulations!”
“Not you, too?” Pat asked with a grin, looking her over with obvious appreciation. “The profession’s improved in the five years since I left it.”
“Only superficially,” she told him. “The pay still isn’t as good as what you get in industry, the hours are just as long, the phone rings off the hook all night and on weekends, and you still get yelled at for misspelled names on the society page—whether or not you’re responsible. And I loved every minute of it, how about you?”
Sighing, he shrugged. “Same here, but I had expensive tastes—I liked three square meals a day and driving a car that wasn’t ten years old. Now,” he added with a malicious grin, “I drive a two year old car and eat two whole meals a day!”
She laughed again, delighted. “What paper did you work for?” she asked.
“One of the Miami papers,” he said, and named it.
She gasped. “But that’s the paper I’m with…was with,” she corrected.
He leaned closer, lowering his voice secretively. “If I say the password, will you have dinner with me tonight?”
“What is the password?” she replied just as softly.
“Charlie wants it,” he whispered.
She grinned. “What time shall I be ready?”
“Six sharp, and where do I pick you up?”
“At my home,” Devereaux replied for her, his eyes narrowed and dangerous. “Meredith is my secretary. She’s taking a…break…from reporting.”
Pat nodded. “Let a story get to you?” he asked her quietly.
She nodded back. “It’s better now.”
“I understand.”
“If you’re through,” Devereaux said in a voice like cold steel, “my time is limited. I’d like to get the tour over with.”
“Of course, sir!” Olsen said quickly. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Recognizing the sharp look he got as a warning, Pat volunteered to stay behind and interview one of three job applicants in the waiting room.
“Kind of you to volunteer,” Devereaux said pointedly. “That is your job, I presume, as head of personnel?”
One of Pat’s eyebrows went up. “One of them, yes,” he replied, and if he was intimidated, it didn’t show.
Devereaux turned toward the door. “Let’s go, Olsen.”
“Yes, sir! Right this way…”
The first thing that impressed Dana was the size and spaciousness of the building. The tile floors were strangely clean for the number of employees. Most of them, she noticed, were women. They sat at row upon row of sewing machines, and the noise was ear-splitting. Occasionally, men would move among the women with what looked like ragged bundles of colorful cloth. Other men moved through the unit with large buggies of cloth, or passed down the aisle on their way to the canteen for coffee or snacks.
“This is the shirt line,” Olsen was explaining, gesturing toward the first of the large sections. “Each woman performs a particular function in the manufacture of a shirt—one may sew sides seams while another puts on sleeves, and so forth. The women you see standing up, moving around the machines, are called floor ladies. They’re the supervisors.”
“How about those men there?” Dana asked, nodding toward two young men carrying the bundles.
Olsen chuckled. “They’re called, believe it or not, bundle boys. If a girl does it, she’s called a bundle girl. They carry pieces of a garment to be sewn to the women who do that particular section of the shirt.”
Dana watched, fascinated at the speed of the women as they ran the material out with deft, quick hands. Olsen went on to explain that they had to meet a deadline and that their pay depended on how fast they could sew.
They were in the cutting room, where tables ran the length of the building and men were busily at work cutting out huge layers of cloth with what looked like jigsaws, when one of the office girls came quickly toward them.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she apologized, “but there’s an urgent message for Mr. Devereaux. Mr. Hall called from your office and said that a man named Winston was waiting to see you, sir.”
“Winston!” Adrian sighed heavily. “That’s right. Let’s go, Dana, I’ll bring you back another day to finish the tour. Olsen, thanks anyway.”
“My pleasure, sir. If Miss Meredith would like to stay…” he offered.
“She comes with me,” Devereaux said in a firm voice, with a hard glance at Dana.
“Back down into the catacombs again, boss?” she asked in a sweet tone.
“You’ve got it, Persephone,” he murmured darkly.
He managed to get her outside and into the car without Pat seeing her, and she seethed at his possessive attitude.
“You don’t own me,” she said quietly, on the way back to the manor. “I have a right to go out with a man if I want to.”
“Man?” he scoffed. “He couldn’t be over twenty-six.”
She glanced at the hard expression on his face. “At least he isn’t over the hill, like some people I could name!”
He turned slowly in the seat, and met her eyes levelly. His were dark and quiet and threatening.
“Little girl,” he said in a voice that chilled, “someday I’m going to make a point of showing you just how ‘over the hill’ I happen to be. And it’ll be an experience you won’t forget, I promise you.”
She jerked her gaze away, blushing faintly. “Thank you for my lunch, anyway,” she said politely.
There was a deep, resigned sigh from the other side of the car. “Dana, this isn’t how I planned your birthday to turn out,” he said, almost regretfully.
“What did you have in mind, sir?” she asked tightly. “Party hats and balloons and noisemakers, and a little cake with my name on it?”
“Damn you,” he whispered deeply, and his hand shot out, catching her wrist to jerk her across his lap and into his big, merciless arms.
She found her head thrust against his shoulder, his eyes blazing down into hers, his warm breath whipping across her mouth.
His big hand found her cheek, his fingers caressing, his eyes searching hers in a silence that seemed to last forever, the traffic noises drowned out, time suspended around them.
“This is what I had in mind,” he whispered softly, bending his head. His mouth whispered against hers as the words had brushed her ears, softly, sensuously, seductively. “Don’t fight me this time…little taffy kitten, don’t fight…”
His lips moved deeper and deeper against hers, the kiss hardening, his arms crushing, the need in him like a fever burning her, consuming her.
Instinctively, frightened of the sensations he was arousing, she started to push against his broad chest, but he caught her soft hand and drew it up against his mouth, kissing the palm.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he murmured gruffly, his eyes holding hers. “I know you’re a babe in the woods, despite what I’ve said. I’ll never hurt you. Never.”
Her lips trembled. “But, you said…�
��
His hand brushed the tumbled hair away from her face. “Forget what I said. Dana, I’m just a man,” he whispered, “imperfect and hot-tempered, fond of having everything my own way. But I’m not a monster. God, why can’t you trust me? Even now, in my arms, your body trembles as if I’ve whipped you. Why do I frighten you so?”
She lowered her eyes to his tie. “You know too much,” she murmured breathlessly.
“Not enough,” he mused, tightening his hold on her slender body. “Those seventeen years—they bother you like hell, don’t they?” he asked bitterly.
Shocked, she looked up into his hard eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever given it a thought,” she murmured, absently telling the truth.
His eyes sketched her face slowly. “You’re just a baby, aren’t you?” he whispered softly. “Just a silky little girl. I think I know how Pluto must have felt.”
Involuntarily, her fingers went up to touch his broad, chiseled mouth, tracing its outline. “I’m sorry about the bracelet,” she said gently. “But I thought it must be horribly expensive, and I had nothing to give you in return…”
“Little Miss Independence,” he breathed, shaking his head. “Nothing to give me? How about a kiss, Meredith? Just one, freely given and we’ll call it quits.”
She considered it for several seconds and then, with a tiny sigh that almost betrayed the hunger she was feeling, she reached up and put her mouth to his. She felt him stiffen at the caress, felt the awesome muscles tighten in his big arms and his massive chest.
That tensing puzzled her and she drew back abruptly, looking into eyes that frightened her. His face was like carved stone, his eyes blistering, glittering, his jaw clenched, his breath coming in heavy sighs.
They pulled up in front of the house, and he took the jeweler’s box from his pocket, tossing it idly into her lap.
“T…thank you,” she managed.
“What for?” he demanded. “It’s paid for,” he added coldly.
She turned away, hurt, and reached for the door handle.
“Are you still planning to go out with that ex-news hound tonight?” he asked harshly.