by Diana Palmer
She flinched at the tone. “I thought…I mean, Miss Braunns called this morning and said that you were taking her to the cabin….”
“Did she?” he asked darkly.
“Yes.” What an inadequate word, she thought, to describe what Fayre had really said—the venom in her voice as she told Dana how “affectionate” Adrian had been lately, and how she was looking forward to an uninterrupted weekend with him, and how Dana had damned sure better guarantee that they weren’t disturbed. But she didn’t tell him that. She only said, “Yes.”
“Do you swim?” he asked suddenly.
“No, sir,” she replied without thinking.
He turned on her, his eyes black, his face heavily lined and tired. “How many times do I have to tell you not to call me sir?”
She swallowed nervously. “I’m sorry,” she met his threatening gaze levelly. “Must I go?” she added softly. “I had planned…”
“He’s in Chicago,” he told her with narrowed eyes.
Both eyebrows went up. “Pat? But we were going…”
“Were is right. You’re coming to the lake with me. You’ve got exactly thirty minutes to pack.” He turned back to his desk, thumbing through papers.
She opened her mouth to argue, but thought better of it. She sighed as she went out the door. Talk about homework, she thought miserably, it looked like this was going to be a honey of a working weekend. He’d probably saved up every bit of correspondence for her. With a grimace she went to her room to pack.
Leaving Frank behind, Adrian drove the Mercedes, with Dana in front and Lillian comfortably relaxed in the back seat. They reached Gainesville in no time, and he stopped at a big chain supermarket.
“Sir,” Lillian protested, “the freezer’s full, and the cabinet’s stocked…”
He grinned as he got out of the small car. “Not with what I want. Come on!”
The years had fallen away. He seemed younger, more relaxed—almost carefree. And the charm he was turning full force on Dana was devastating.
He pushed the grocery cart himself. “Lillian,” he told the older woman, “get me some lettuce and tomatoes and onions from the produce counter.”
She frowned. “You going to make a salad?” she asked.
“I’m going to make a scene if you don’t get going,” he threatened, not even breaking stride as he headed for the dairy counter.
Lillian went, shaking her head, and Dana followed her boss. He was picking up some flat meal cakes.
“Get me a carton of sour cream,” he told her, nodding toward the nearby section of yogurt and creams.
With a puzzled glance, she picked up a large one and brought it back, handing it to him.
“Now,” he said. “Ground beef.”
“Think we can get it without mortgaging one of your cars?” Dana asked cheekily.
He looked down at her with quiet amusement in his eyes. “For that,” he said, “you can help me cook supper. We’re giving Lillian the night off in the kitchen. What do you want for dessert?”
She caught her breath, aglow at the possibilities. “How about,” she murmured thoughtfully, “some of those frozen eclairs? Do you like chocolate?”
“Go get it,” he told her, “and anything else that you want.”
She darted off to the frozen goods section, her mind whirling with the possibilities. The grocery store had always been someplace to go with a very tight list of necessities. To be able to choose a dessert without looking at the price and sacrificing something else for it was new and exciting.
She grabbed up the eclairs and forced herself not to look at the price tag. He was waiting for her at the meat counter.
“Is that all you wanted?” he asked incredulously.
She shrugged with a tiny smile. “I don’t have very expensive tastes,” she told him.
He met her eyes with a strange tenderness. “No, honey, you don’t. It makes a man want to spoil the hell out of you.”
She turned red as a beet, and was grateful for Lillian’s sudden reappearance with the vegetables. “Here you are, Mr. Devereaux, but what are you going to do with them?”
“Dana and I are going to make tacos,” he told her, “and you’re going to sit down and put your feet up.”
The older woman stood there looking as if she’d won the Irish Sweepstakes, her eyes wider than saucers. Tears began to mist in them, and she turned away quickly.
“Cut it out,” Adrian said darkly. “You’ll make me blush.”
Lillian managed a short laugh. “That’ll be the day. Here, you’ll need some cheese, won’t you? I’ll get it.”
Dana looked up at him with everything she felt in her soft brown eyes. “You’re a nice man,” she told him.
He smiled. “It grates, little one. It grates.”
Back at the cabin, Dana shredded lettuce and cheese while Adrian stood over the stove where the ground beef was sizzling away. Lillian, banished from the spacious kitchen overlooking the lake, was curled up on the living room sofa with a magazine.
“I hope you don’t mind if the cheese is pink,” she remarked idly.
“What?” he asked, half turning toward her with a question in his eyes. In the red sports shirt and white slacks, he was a devastating study in masculine beauty, his darkness complimented by the clothes he was wearing.
“Pink cheese,” she repeated, holding a nipped finger to her lips. “I never grate anything at home because I’m so clumsy—I get more of me in what I’m grating than the stuff I’m preparing.”
“Well, it isn’t every day that the cook gives her life’s blood to her work,” he teased gently.
She smiled back at him, and the room seemed to disappear around them.
The smell of burning beef finally caught his attention, and with a muffled curse, he turned back to the stove. “Damn it, woman, don’t distract me like that,” he growled softly. “I don’t like my beef black and crunchy.”
“I don’t see why not,” she laughed, delighted by the change in him, “it’s the latest thing.”
“Shred the damned lettuce and shut up.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And don’t call me sir!”
“No, sir.”
“Dana…!” he growled, making a threat out of her name.
She grinned down at the cheese as she drew it against the grater. He could be so much fun to be with. He made a simple adventure of cooking a meal. She sighed wistfully. If only it was her instead of Fayre that stirred that possessive nature of his. But it wasn’t. And even if it had been, physical hungers didn’t make up for the luxurious wonder that was love. That was what she wanted from Adrian, and he’d already admitted that when he married he hadn’t known what it was.
Supper was delicious. They ate tacos and nibbled on pieces of tomato and cheese until Lillian threatened to burst with her next bite. She ignored the eclairs, shaking her head while Dana and Adrian finished the last one between them.
“Well, I’ll clean up…” Lillian began, rising.
“I said you were having the night off,” Adrian told her. “Dana and I will wash up.”
Lillian smiled, shaking her head. “If you’re sure. I did have my heart set on a movie in my room—they’re showing a rerun of that comedy about gunfighters…”
“Go to it,” Adrian grinned at her. “Come on, Dana, let’s get it done.”
Lillian was gone, and Dana started stacking the plates while Adrian ran water in the sink and searched for washrags and drying cloths.
“I used to do this with Daddy years ago,” Dana recalled with a smile, as she reached past Adrian to set her dishes in the warm, soapy water.
His hands made contact with hers under the surface of the water. His eyes caught hers and held them. “Are you trying to tell me something?” he asked softly.
She couldn’t look away. She couldn’t answer him. Those dark, warm eyes were making chills up and down her spine, the closeness of that big, warm body made her hungry.
“Oh, Adrian,” she breathed
unsteadily, yielding to a sweetness that made her face glow in the soft kitchen light.
He drew her hands out of the sink and lifted them up around his neck, oblivious to their wetness, to the suds that reached to her tanned forearms.
“I’m wet…” she whispered shakily as his own arms went around her slender body, coaxing it against the hard warmth of his own.
“I don’t care,” he whispered deeply. “I want to kiss you. Close your eyes, little girl. I’ll make it good for both of us…”
Trembling, burning, she let her heavy eyelids fall. She felt his mouth touch hers, whisper across it, and then, suddenly, burrow into it with a hunger that shook her heart. His big arms contracted like sunburned rawhide around her, hurting in their own hunger, bruising her. And for the first time, she held on to him, kissing him back with a fervor she’d never felt. And it was like dying, drifting, with the world falling out from under her feet, and she loved him…loved him!
He drew back, and she felt the tremor in his hard arms as he looked down at her with a tenderness in his face she wondered at.
“Not here,” he whispered huskily. “Come on.”
He caught her hand and strode out the back door, down the steps toward the car, towing her along behind him.
He opened the door of the Mercedes and put her inside, sliding in beside her.
“Where…where are we going?” she asked, mindless, breathless with the effects of his ardor.
He reached out and drew her back into his arms, lifting her across his chest to lie with her head pillowed on his shoulder. “We’re not going anywhere,” he murmured quietly. “I wanted to be alone with you, and this was the only readily available spot. Don’t talk, honey. Don’t talk. Just feel, Dana…”
His mouth found hers again, tasting it, cherishing it with a lazy thoroughness that was vaguely reassuring. She reached trembling fingers up to caress his warm, hard jaw, the cool black silky hair at his temples, at the back of his head.
“Here,” he whispered, his teeth nipping gently at her lower lip as he caught her hand and placed it on his broad chest.
She let her palm go flat against him, loving the strength and warmth under her cool fingers as she savored the tender crush of his mouth.
“Well?” he murmured.
“What?” she asked against his lips.
He drew back, his eyes puzzled, his heavy brows drawn together in a frown. His hand covered hers where it lay still against his chest. “Dana, haven’t you ever touched a man…My God, child, I never realized just how unworldly you are until this minute,” he breathed softly.
He flicked open the buttons of his shirt and moved her hand into the thick hair over the warm muscles.
Her hand stiffened unsurely and she felt rather than saw the patient smile on his face as he bent down toward her. “You touched me that night we were dancing in the cabin,” he reminded her softly.
“I…I know, but it was different somehow,” she breathed. “Adrian, you must know that you could…that I couldn’t stop you…” She faltered over the words.
His lips brushed her hot cheek. “I know it very well, Persephone,” he murmured quietly. “Why do you think I brought you out here instead of taking you into the den and locking the door?”
She let her head slide back on his hard arm so that she could look up into his eyes, quiet eyes in the dim light that sliced across the front seat from the house windows.
He let the back of his fingers run down her cheek, against her soft throat, into the opening of her low necked blouse, feeling her tremble under the slow caress.
“Do you let Pat Melbourne touch you like this?” he asked suddenly, the very quietness of his deep voice a threat in itself.
Under the spell of his lips, his deft, warm hands, it took a minute for the words to penetrate her swaying mind.
“Pat? He’s my friend,” she whispered. “He doesn’t touch me at all.”
“Doesn’t he?” His eyes narrowed to slits. “You’ve been out with him every night for a week, and you expect me to believe that it’s been platonic every minute?”
She tugged out of his arms, and sat up, gaping at him. “Yes, I expect you to believe it, because it’s the truth!” she threw at him.
“Is it, really?” he gazed at her with contempt in every line of his face. “God, you’re easy,” he said silkily. “All it took was one kiss, and you’d have followed me straight into my bedroom, wouldn’t you, Meredith?”
She felt her face go white. He could think that…when she loved him enough to follow him straight into hell, and he couldn’t see it.
Her eyes closed on a humiliation she couldn’t bear him seeing. “I’ll go back and finish the dishes,” she said in a strained voice, reaching for the door handle.
“Do that.” He reached in his pocket for keys. “I’m going back to the house. Fayre’s waiting for me.”
Ten
The cold words haunted her all through the long night. “Fayre’s waiting for me.” She wanted to find a hole and crawl into it. How could he, how could he?! The only good thing that had come out of that cruel night was that Lillian hadn’t come out and seen the whiteness of her face, the tears trickling freely down her cheeks as she cried like a young girl.
Was it some form of vengeance, she wondered, and cursed her own stupidity for letting him see how much she wanted his kisses. That had amused him. And gave him the impression that she was an easy mark. At least he hadn’t realized that she was in love with him. His blindness had been her salvation.
When morning came, her eyes were bloodshot and her face showed the effects of three hours’ sleep. She used more makeup than she ever had to camouflage it, wondering all the while if Adrian had come back in the night, or if he planned to come back at all.
After breakfast she had the answer. Frank came with the car to take her and Lillian, who was wearing a puzzled frown, back to Atlanta.
They walked in the front door to find Fayre coming jauntily down the stairs with an overnight case in her hand. Dana felt something die inside her, and clutched her pride to her like a shield. She met Fayre’s smiling face with a schooled indifference that made lights flash in the little blonde’s pale eyes.
“Well, good morning,” she cooed. “Did you have a good time at the lake?”
“An interesting one, anyway,” Dana said coolly.
“That’s nice. Well, I must be off. I have to…catch up on my sleep,” she said with a secretive smile and simulated self-consciousness. “Goodbye. Tell Adrian I’ll call him later.”
Adrian! Dana managed a tight smile. “Of course.”
Fayre went out the front door with a triumphant little laugh.
“Tramp!” Lillian whispered harshly, staring at the closed door. “What in this world has gotten into the Mister?!”
“Lillian!” came a roar from upstairs. “Get up here!”
Lillian’s eyes narrowed. “He’ll wish I hadn’t,” she promised, her lips set and her eyes flashing as she mounted the staircase.
Dana set her case under the hall table and went straight into the study. She sat down at the desk and got out the correspondence left over from Thursday. In minutes, her fingers were busy on the keys of the typewriter.
Lillian stuck her head in the door on the way upstairs with a tray of steaming coffee.
“If it’s any consolation,” she grinned, “he’s got a head the size of all outdoors, and I think he hates himself. He must have really tied one on last night.”
That was strange, she thought, what was there to make him drink? Or maybe, she sighed, Fayre had given him a reason.
By late afternoon, Adrian was back on his feet and in a darkly dangerous mood.
“Have you got an evening gown?” he asked Dana, pausing beside her desk as he picked up the telephone.
“Yes,” she said shortly.
“Go put it on. There’s a cocktail party at the Jamesons’ tonight and we’re going to discuss opening an outlet store. I’ll need you there to take no
tes.”
“Wouldn’t a tape recorder do?” she asked coldly.
He gazed down at her with narrowed eyes. “I feel like hell,” he said quietly. “Keep it up, and I can guarantee you’ll feel the same way when I’m through with you.”
She clammed up. With a heavy sigh, she left the typewriter and went upstairs to change clothes. It was going to be a perfectly horrible evening. She dreaded it even as she put on the clinging brandy colored knit dress and started working on her makeup.
She almost put her hair into a bun because she knew he hated it, but his mood was unpredictable, and she had visions of him ripping hairpins out in front of a startled group of partygoers. She left it long and loose and went downstairs with all the gaiety of a condemned woman walking to the gallows.
He came out of the den, checking his cuffs, devastatingly handsome in his black evening clothes, his black hair still damp from a shower. He smelled of expensive cologne, and just the sight of the man was enough to quicken her pulse.
His dark eyes swept up and down her body with a slow, thorough boldness that made her burn. “If you’d been wearing that last night…” He left it unsaid, but she anticipated the words and blushed.
“Come on, Dana, we don’t want to be late,” he said carelessly, holding the door open for her.
“No, sir,” she said deliberately.
And this time, he didn’t argue.
The Jamesons had a large brick home on a wooded lot that was every bit as big as Adrian’s. Dana’s first impression inside the house was of crystal and light. Even the guests seemed to glitter.
“Don’t let it intimidate you,” Adrian told her. “The Jamesons are just people. Very nice people.”
She only nodded, feeling lost and alone and vaguely afraid. Crowds bothered her. They always had.
“Reporters are supposed to love crowds and strangers and bright lights,” Adrian reminded her gently. He reached down for her hand and felt it tremble in his firm, warm grasp, curling up in a token protest. “Stay close to me, little taffy kitten,” he murmured, softly, “and I’ll protect you.”
“Who’ll protect me from you?” she grumbled unsteadily.