by JoAnn Ross
Her head swam; the room began to spin; little dots danced in front of her eyes.
Then the floor tilted and rushed up at her.
Chapter Twenty
Zach was at Alex's side before she reached the plush carpeting. His hands caught her upper arms and he lowered her to the chair.
"Why the hell didn't you tell my secretary you were sick when she scheduled this meeting?" he growled.
As angry as he was at Alex for her blatant disregard for her health, he was even angrier at himself for not having noticed how ill she was. "We could have postponed it until you were feeling better."
"I didn't want to postpone, because we're running out of time as it is. Besides, it's just a cold."
"Colds don't make you faint. And scheduling isn't your problem."
"I thought—"
"You think too damn much." Squatting, he placed the back of his hand against her forehead. "You've got a fever."
Her flesh was raging hot and clammy at the same time. Something alien ripped through Zach, something that felt a great deal like fear. "I'm taking you to the hospital emergency room."
"You're overreacting." Why didn't he just leave her alone? Alex tried to stand and was immediately pushed back down. "It's just a cold," she repeated. "And perhaps a bit too much work."
"How about a lot too much work? When was the last time you had a decent meal?"
"I had spaghetti last night." The noodles and tomato sauce had tasted like the cardboard box they'd come in. She'd thrown away most of the microwave meal. "And I don't want to go to any hospital."
"Tough."
"Dammit, Zach—" Her planned protest was cut off by a deep, wracking cough that went on and on.
He swore at her richly. "That's it." With a speed that caused her head to start spinning again, his fingers curved around her shoulders and he hauled her to her feet.
"Don't touch me."
"I've been trying like hell not to touch you for weeks," he retorted. "But thanks to your lack of concern for your own health, we're both just going to have to put up with it." Ignoring her hurt intake of breath, he said, "Do you think you can walk?"
"Of course." She hoped.
"Then come on." He half-carried, half-dragged her out the office door. "Call Dan Matheson at Presbyterian General," he barked uncharacteristically at his secretary. "Tell him I'm bringing in a patient."
"You don't have to call anyone," Alex countermanded, "because I'm not going to any hospital."
Zach's hold on her tightened. "Shut up." His tone was brusque and unsympathetic. To his secretary he said, "Tell Matheson we'll be there in ten minutes. Fifteen tops."
With that, Zach hauled Alex into the private elevator from his office suite.
"You can't treat me this way," she complained as he jabbed the button. "I don't work for you. In case you've forgotten, Zachary Deveraux, I'm a privately licensed contractor. That contract I signed with Lord's doesn't give you the right to interfere in my personal life."
He jerked her close against him, literally holding her on her feet. "If you don't quit wasting valuable energy talking, I'm going to have to resort to a left hook to shut you up."
"You wouldn't dare!"
Of course he wouldn't. He'd never in his entire life struck a woman. Not even Miranda, who'd certainly tempted him on enough occasions.
"I wouldn't put it to the test if I were you," he said.
They reached the underground garage. As they exited the elevator, Alex's knees sagged. Zach caught her when she stumbled and scooped her up in his arms.
"I said I could walk," she complained.
"Yeah, you were doing a real great job." He wanted to hold her close against his chest and never let go. He wanted to take care of her. And not just today, but all the days of their lives.
"I don't know what you're so mad about," she grumbled. Succumbing to the irresistible lure of his strong shoulder, she rested her head against the gray wool.
"Stupidity always makes me angry. You should be old enough to take care of yourself without a keeper."
"I've had a lot of work to do."
He managed to unlock the door of his car and deposit her in the passenger seat and buckle her seat belt. "Ever heard of delegating?"
"My name's going to be on the label." When the garage began spinning, she leaned her head against the leather seat back and closed her eyes. "If I want the clothes to be perfect, which I do, I have to take full responsibility."
"Just what the world needs. Another dead over-achiever."
"I wish you'd just leave me alone."
"That makes two of us," he snapped. "But in case you haven't been paying attention during all those meetings, The Lord's Group is investing one helluva lot of money in you, Alexandra Lyons. I'm not about to let anything happen to that investment."
"That's what all this is about? Money?"
"What the hell do you think?"
His husky growl sent a warmth flowing through her that Alex feared had nothing to do with her fever. She opened her eyes and found herself looking directly into his. "Dammit, Alex," he said, softening his demeanor and his tone, "don't argue. Not now."
He brushed her cheek with his knuckles in a slow, tender sweep she knew was meant to soothe rather than arouse, but nevertheless created a violent rush of feeling deep inside her.
Dragging her gaze from his, she glanced around the lushly appointed interior, which smelled of leather and wood. "Nice car."
"Thanks. I like it."
As a kid, he'd pored over the pages of his uncle's Motor Trend magazines, practically drooling over the dazzling, unaffordable cars. If anyone had ever told him he'd actually own a Jaguar like this one, he'd have wondered just what kind of cigarettes they'd been smoking.
"Looks like you'd need a pilot's license to drive it," she murmured, taking in the multitude of dials on the dash. When those dials began to dance, she leaned her head back again, closed her eyes and allowed her mind to drift as Zach drove through the wet streets.
At her insistence, he allowed her to walk into the hospital, but kept one strong arm around her for support. She was relieved when he didn't declare his intention of accompanying her into the examining room. She wasn't up to another confrontation.
"I don't believe it," she murmured an hour later when they were back in the Jag.
"Neither do I." His expression was as grim as she'd ever seen it; his stony jaw could have been chiseled from granite. "Christ, how the hell could you not notice you had pneumonia?"
"I really wish you'd quit yelling at me," she complained weakly.
"Sorry," he muttered, sounding as if he meant it.
"I thought it was just a cold." Then, in a frail voice so unlike her own usual robust one, she said, "Thank you."
He slanted her a look. "You're welcome."
Alex would have given anything to know what he was thinking, but his gaze was expertly and frustratingly shuttered. Groggy from her fever and light-headed from the injection the doctor had given her, Alex didn't question how Zach knew where she lived.
Nor did she protest when he lifted her from the passenger seat and carried her into the funky pink-and-yellow bungalow on Venice Beach, one of a handful that had managed to evade falling prey to greedy land developers' bulldozers.
Warning bells began to peal when he headed unerringly toward her bedroom, but her mind was too fogged to offer up a single word of complaint.
He sat her down on the edge of the bed. The bits and pieces of fabric and papers scattered over the puffy comforter emblazoned with wildflowers were mute testimony to the fact that she'd been working when she should have been sleeping.
"This is ridiculous," he muttered, gathering up the colorful swatches.
"Wrong. It's Italian silk."
"Cute, Alex. Real cute." He tossed the fabric and sketches onto a nearby wicker table.
"Need any help getting undressed?" he asked with more casualness than he was feeling.
Christ, it was getting ha
rder and harder to be around this woman without wanting her! Even dressed as she was, engulfed in that oversize scarlet sweater, too-baggy slacks and black boots, even with her Rudolph-red nose and her too-pale cheeks, even knowing how sick she was, Zach still had a burning desire to touch her.
He longed to slip his hand beneath the hem of her sweater and caress the flesh he knew would be even softer than the crimson cashmere. These long and frustrating months of working so closely with her, at the same time forcing himself to keep his distance, had taken their emotional toll on him.
"I think I can manage it."
Relief and regret washed over him. It was, Zach reminded himself, for the best. "I'll wait in the other room. Shout if you need anything."
Although it wasn't easy, he forced himself to cool his heels in her living room, taking the opportunity to study the room that bore her own personal stamp in the same way as her unique designs.
Casual wicker furniture with bright blue-and-yellow sail-cloth cushions sat on a bleached oak floor. In the center of the room, colorful hot-air balloons took flight on a sky blue rug. Green plants flourished in brightly flowered ceramic cache pots. Art posters hung on the snow-white walls.
A pair of red shoes with ridiculously high heels rested haphazardly on the rug in front of the wicker sofa, surrounded by more scraps of vivid silks and glowing satins. A small plastic globe rested on a nearby table, the scene inside depicting the New York skyline. Other similar globes displayed the St. Louis arch, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Seattle space needle and the Alamo, making Zach remember her telling him about her youthful Gypsy existence.
One plastic globe in particular captured his attention; he picked it up and turned it over, causing snow to fall on St. Louis Cathedral across the street from New Orleans's Jackson Square.
Zach experienced a pang of bittersweet remembrance and wondered if there were times when Alex held this same toy world in her palms and thought of him.
Sighing, he returned the globe to its place and continued his study of the room, searching for clues about Alex's life. He took special note of the framed photo of a middle-aged gray-haired woman and a smiling, dark-haired boy atop a table painted to resemble a bright yellow sunflower.
Her mother and brother, Zach decided, looking for a resemblance to Alex and finding none.
Perhaps Eleanor was right.
You're letting anxiety about the lady warp your mind, pal. Zach reminded himself that of the eight kids in his family, he and his sister Maggie resembled his mother, Paula and Lorraine resembled their dad, and the other four girls didn't really look like either parent. Or each other.
That being the case, there really wasn't any reason for Alex to look like her mother. And her twin, he reminded himself, was not identical, but fraternal.
He went into the pocket-size, old-fashioned kitchen which, while painted a sunny yellow with a bright blue ceiling and smelling of Christmas due to the pyramid of clove-studded oranges on the creamy ceramic tile, didn't look as if it had changed since the house was built, probably in the thirties. He filled a red enamel kettle with water for tea, then stood at the window, hands jammed into the pockets of his slacks gazing out at the sea, which was draped by the misty rain in a silvery blanket of fog, while his mind was filled, as it was too often these days, with thoughts of Alex.
He'd come to realize that Alexandra Lyons was smart and sweet and dazzlingly talented. Her stunning beauty was only illuminated by the blaze of her fiercely independent ambition, an ambition he clearly recognized, possessing a fair share of that character trait himself.
She was, without a doubt, the most fascinating and intriguing—and ill, he reminded himself firmly—woman he'd ever met.
His thoughts were shattered by the shrill whistle of the kettle. As he poured the water over a Constant Comment tea bag he'd found in a flowered canister on the open shelf, he glanced up at the whimsical black-and-white cat clock and realized she'd been in the bedroom a very long time. What the hell was she doing? Taking the tea with him, he went back to the bedroom and tapped lightly on the door. Once. Twice, then a third time. When she didn't answer, he decided to risk her ire and go in.
She was sprawled atop the comforter, appearing dead to the world. Zach experienced a momentary panic that was eased when he viewed the slow rise and fall of her chest. Her breathing was shallow and strained, but it was steady.
Bending down, working gently so as not to disturb her, Zach unzipped her knee-length boots and slipped them off. Her red socks, then her slacks followed.
"Oh, hell." Zach groaned when he discovered the scrap of crimson lace cut high on her delicately rounded hips. Trust this woman not to wear nice, safe, white cotton underpants. Although, he considered, his gaze lingering on that soft shadow of femininity between her long legs, Alex could probably make even a nun's drawers look sexy.
Frowning, he set to work on the sweater, unbuttoning it with fingers that were not nearly as steady as they should have been. As he'd feared, her bra matched those ridiculous panties. It was as scarlet as sin.
Standing beside the bed, staring down at the provocative sight, Zach felt like a starving man, his nose pressed against the glass of a bakery, denied even the smallest morsel.
During these past months, Zach had come to the unwilling conclusion that Alex had been designed by the Fates to taunt him, to torment his sleep and drive him crazy with dreams of what he could not—dared not—have. She was a bewitching nymph created solely to teach him that the self-control he'd always prided himself on was nothing more than a well-constructed sham. She was also a bright, intelligent woman who made every other woman he'd ever known pale in comparison.
Exhaling a long sigh, he managed to tuck her beneath the sheets. He bent and touched his lips to hers.
Then, leaving her to sleep, he went into the living room, picked up the receiver of her Mickey Mouse phone and placed a call to Eleanor.
When Alex awoke several hours later, she found herself in the capable hands of the private nurse Zach and Eleanor had hired. When she tried to assure the blond Amazon that she could take care of herself, Inga Nusland simply folded her muscular arms over her ample chest and refused to budge.
By the third day of sinfully hedonistic pampering, during which time the phlegmatic Inga proved herself to be not only a capable nurse but a marvelous cook and baker, Alex decided that perhaps there was something to be said for relaxation, after all.
Chapter Twenty-One
"When are you going to admit she's Anna?" Eleanor demanded.
Zach had come to Santa Barbara to fill the older woman in on Alexandra's recuperation. Although he hadn't returned to that cheerful little bungalow, Inga gave him daily updates, and he'd spoken with her doctor.
"There's still no proof," Zach pointed out as he did every time they had this conversation.
Sometimes, and this was one of them, he almost wished he'd never met Alexandra Lyons, hadn't played Sir Galahad in that long-ago Mardi Gras. But dammit, he had, and now, thanks to him, they were both suffering.
Once, when he was a boy, he'd come across a wild owl struggling impotently to fly with a broken wing. He'd wrapped the crippled bird in his shirt, taken it home, then spent the next two weeks feeding it field mice and night-crawlers, only to have the ungrateful owl nearly bite off the end of his finger.
No good deed ever goes unpunished, his grand-mère had proclaimed. At the time, Zach hadn't known how prophetic her words would prove to be.
"Surely you can see the resemblance?" Eleanor pressed.
"I'll agree she looks a lot like you as a young woman. But that doesn't mean she's your granddaughter. After all, Miranda's your niece, and there's no Lord family resemblance there."
Eleanor scowled at the memory of her niece's call the night before, when she'd asked for a little loan to cover her losses in Monte Carlo. She'd also requested Eleanor not mention the call to Zach, which was bothersome because Eleanor had tried to stay out of the disaster that was Zach and Miranda's
marriage.
They were both adults, she'd told herself innumerable times. What they did, or with whom, was their own business. So long as it didn't impact adversely on Lord's.
"Miranda inherited her looks from her mother's gene pool."
Along with, Eleanor worried, her behavior. After marrying Lawrence Lord, Sylvie, the viscount's tennis-playing daughter had proved to be not so genteel, after all. The sad truth was that Sylvie had been a gin-guzzling nymphomaniac.
Zach wished he hadn't brought Miranda up. He didn't want to talk about his wife. He also didn't want to admit that during these months working closely with Alex, he'd noticed things about her that defied any rational explanation.
She possessed certain gestures that he'd witnessed innumerable times in Eleanor herself, along with a stubborn intelligence he couldn't help but admire, even as it frustrated him whenever they found themselves on opposite sides of an issue. Like that damn factory ultimatum.
"Are you planning to share your suspicions with Alex?"
Eleanor sighed. "No. Not yet." From the deep furrows on her brow, Zach suspected she was recalling another time she'd felt so sure she'd found Anna. "Not until after we launch the Blue Bayou collection. But what would be wrong with seeing if we could strike a chord in her memory?"
"Eleanor—"
Eleanor ignored his planned protest. "The poor girl's been working so hard she made herself sick. Even after the doctor pronounces her recovered, she'll still need her rest."
"You're suggesting she recuperate here. In Santa Barbara." It was not a question.
Eleanor's forehead smoothed. "Here," she confirmed. "In the home where she and her father and grandfather were all born."
There was so much to prepare; Eleanor wanted things absolutely perfect when Anna finally returned home.
* * *
After ten days of antibiotics, supplemented by biscuits slathered with butter and marmalade, apple strudel, and steaming stews and chicken pies topped with fat, fluffy dumplings, Alex proclaimed herself ready to go back to work.