by Diana Palmer
“Hello?” she said, her voice breathless and curt. “If that’s you, Dan Harvey, try the rest room. That’s where everybody runs to hide when you need a story covered—”
“It isn’t Harvey,” came the reply in a deep, familiar voice.
Her heart slammed wildly at her rib cage. “Jacob?”
She could almost hear him smiling. “I’ve been ringing for the past hour. I thought you got off at five.”
Her breath was sticking in her throat. She slid onto an armchair by the phone and tried to stop herself from shaking. It had been two weeks since Margo’s wedding, but it felt like years. “I do,” she heard herself saying. “I had to cover a story at city hall and the traffic was terrible.”
“Have dinner with me,” he said in a tone she’d never heard him use. “I realize it’s short notice, but I didn’t expect to be in town overnight.”
She could have died when she remembered almost accepting Roger’s offer of a meal. If she had… It didn’t bear thinking about!
“It’s going on six-thirty,” she said, glancing at her digital clock.
“Can you be ready in thirty minutes?”
“Do birds fly?” she croaked. “Of course I can!”
He chuckled. “I’ll pick you up then.”
“But, wait, you don’t know where I live,” she said frantically.
“I know,” was all he said. And the line went dead.
She looked at the receiver blankly. Well, so much for being cool and poised and keeping her head, she thought ruefully. She might as well have taken an ad in her own paper, a display ad that read: I’m yours, Jacob!
It took her only ten minutes to shower and blow-dry her hair, but finding the right dress took fifteen. She went through everything in her closet, dismissing one outfit as too demure, another as too brassy, and still another as dull and disgustingly old. The only thing left was a silky black dress with no sleeves and a deeply slit bodice that laced up. It was midknee, just a cocktail dress, but she liked its sophistication. She wore the garment with black velvet pumps and a glittering rhinestone necklace. And even if she did say so herself, she looked sharp. She left her hair long, letting it fall naturally around her shoulders like black satin, and she didn’t wear much makeup. Jacob didn’t like cosmetics.
He was prompt. The buzzer rang at precisely seven o’clock, and with trembling hands she pushed the button that would unlock the front door of the apartment building.
Minutes later, he was at the door. She opened it, shaking all over, while she tried to pretend that she was poised. And there he was, resplendent in a black dinner jacket and trousers, with a pleated white shirt and elegant black tie, the polish on his shoes glossy enough to reflect the carpet.
“Nice,” he murmured, taking in the black dress. “I’m glad you didn’t want a fast-food hamburger.”
She flushed. It sounded as though he had expected her tastes not to be simple. “I…”
“Get your purse and let’s go,” he said tersely. “I’ve booked a table for seven-thirty.”
She didn’t argue. She felt on the sofa for her purse, locked the door behind her and followed him into the elevator.
“You didn’t say what to wear,” she faltered, stopping short of admitting that she’d dressed to the teeth just to please him, not because she expected to go anywhere fancy.
He leaned against the rail inside the elevator and stared down at her with easy sophistication. He looked like a predator tonight, and she realized with a start that she’d never been alone with him before. It was an entirely new kind of relationship, being a woman in his eyes. Everything was different suddenly, and her heart was beating like thunder.
“You’re nervous around me,” he said finally. “Why?”
Her slender shoulders rose and fell. “I always have been,” she said quietly. “You’re very intimidating.”
“You’re not a child anymore,” he replied, his dark eyes narrowing in that bronzed face. “For tonight, you’re my date, not Margo’s best friend. I don’t expect to have to quote etiquette or tie a bib on you.”
He was being frankly insulting now, and she felt her pride reassert itself. “If you’d rather go alone…?”
He glared at her. “I might wish I had, if you don’t stop this shrinking-violet act. If I’d wanted a shy little virgin, I’d have found one.”
But she was! She almost told him so, too, and then she realized that it might ruin her whole evening. For years she’d wanted to be with him, to have one magical night to live on. And here she was about to send it up in smoke.
She managed a smile for him, hoping it was coquettish enough. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s been a long day.”
He accepted her excuse after a cursory appraisal. They got off the elevator and he took her arm to lead her to his car. He’d rented a Mercedes, silvery and elegant.
“It’s like yours,” she said slowly as he helped her into the car. The Cade family had two cars—a black Lincoln and a silver Mercedes—as well as other ranch vehicles.
“It is mine,” he corrected her. “You know I hate airplanes. I drove here.”
“It must have taken all day,” she faltered.
He got in beside her. “Two days,” he said. “But that was because I stopped in Wisconsin. I had some business with a dairy farmer there.”
Knowing how Jacob drove, she was surprised that he’d made it to Chicago alive. She peeked at him. “No speeding tickets?”
His eyebrows arched. “I beg your pardon?” he asked coolly.
She stared at the purse in her lap. “How many cars was it you wrecked during college?”
“I am not a bad driver,” he replied arrogantly. He moved out into the traffic, barely missing a passing car. The driver sat down on his horn and Jacob glared at him. “Idiots,” he muttered. “Nobody in this city can drive worth beans. I’ve had five close calls tonight already, just like that one.”
Kate was trying not to double over laughing. It wouldn’t do, it really wouldn’t.
“And it wasn’t three cars,” he added. “It was two.”
She glanced up to find a frankly amused gleam in his dark eyes. She smiled at him in spite of herself, marveling at the way the motion drew his eyes briefly to her lips.
“Who did you think I was when you answered the phone?” he asked carelessly.
“My city editor,” she told him. “I get stuck with all the terrible assignments because the other reporters hide out when he wants a victim.”
“You mentioned you were out covering a story,” he recalled, pausing at a traffic light. He drew a cigarette from the pack in the glove compartment and lit it lazily. “What was it?”
She told him, outlining the alderman’s plan for the neighborhood and the mayor’s successful program of revitalization in problem areas of the city. “Cities seem pretty impersonal, and then something like this happens. It makes me feel better about urban areas,” she said with a smile. “I like Chicago.”
He glanced at her curiously, but he didn’t say anything.
Her eyes sought his dark face, noticing how handsome he looked as the colorful city lights played over his features. “You’ve never asked me out before. In fact,” she said softly, “I used to think that you hated me.”
He pulled the car into a vacant space in front of a plush downtown restaurant, cut the engine and turned to look at her, his dark eyes steady and faintly glimmering. “Hate and desire are different sides of the same coin,” he said quietly. “I couldn’t very well seduce my niece’s best friend.”
Her heart went wild. “I…didn’t realize,” she faltered.
“I made damned sure you didn’t realize,” he said softly, watching her intently. “I’ve tried to protect Margo. That’s why I never brought women home. You were a tough proposition, anyway—the first woman I ever wanted who was completely off-limits.”
He said wanted, not loved. She had to remember to make the distinction as Tom had warned. Careful, girl, she told herself, don’t
let him get under your skin.
The trouble was, he was already there, very deep. She loved him too much.
“But now Margo’s married,” he said softly, reaching out to stroke a long strand of black hair in a way that made her body ache. “And I don’t have to hide it anymore. You’re almost twenty-five. You’re a responsible, independent woman and you live in the city. I don’t have to handle you with kid gloves, do I, Kate?”
She didn’t mind how he handled her. That was the whole problem. Part of her wanted to clear up his misconceptions, to tell him about her childhood, about her very strict upbringing. But another part of her was afraid that if she told him the truth he’d hightail it back to South Dakota and never come near her again. And so she bit her tongue to keep from denying what he’d said.
He finished his cigarette leisurely, leaning forward to stub it out. The movement brought him so close to Kate that she could see the thickness of his black eyelashes, the tiny wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. She could smell the expensive cologne he wore and the fainter tang of the soap and shampoo he used.
He turned before he leaned back, catching her eyes. It was the closest she’d ever been to him. Her heart felt as if it were going to burst when he put one lean hand at her cheek and began to slowly, sensuously rub his thumb over her soft lips.
“You don’t wear layers of makeup,” he said softly. “I like that. And you dress like a lady.” His gaze went down to the laces of her bodice, lingering there before moving up again to meet her eyes. “Are you wearing anything under that witchy dress?”
It was too intimate a question. She averted her face, trying not to look like the gauche innocent she was. “Why don’t you feed me?”
He laughed softly. “All right. We’ll do it your way.”
Do what? She didn’t even ask; it was safer not to know the answer.
The restaurant was crowded, but they had a nice table on the upper level of an interior that featured exquisite crystal chandeliers and an atmosphere of affluence that made Kate feel frumpy even in the expensive dress she was wearing. She’d had to save money for weeks to afford it; most of the other women who were sitting around this restaurant looked as if they could lay down cash for a Mercedes.
“Don’t look so intimidated,” Jacob mused as they were seated. “They’re just people.”
She laughed nervously. “If you knew how I grew up…” she began.
“I do. I’ve seen your grandmother Walker’s house,” he replied easily. “It was an old Victorian, but still elegant in its way.”
“I grew up,” she repeated, “in Nebraska. On a farm. My father was—” she almost said “a lay minister,” but she changed it to “—poor. My mother left when Tom and I were just babies. Dad kept us until his death.” Of a brain tumor, she could have added, one that made him crazy. She shuddered a little at the painful memories. After all these years, she still had a very real fear of male domination. She could hear her father shouting, feel the whip of the belt across her bare legs whenever she triggered his explosive, unpredictable temper.
“I grew up rich,” Jacob replied. “We inherited money from my great-grandfather. He made a fortune back in the late 1880s, when a blizzard drove out half the cattlemen in the West. The old devil had a knack for predicting bad weather. He managed to get his cattle east before that devastating snowfall. He made a fortune.”
“Money seems to bring its own responsibilities,” she remarked, studying his hard, lined face and cool, dark eyes. “You never seem to have any time to yourself.”
A corner of his mouth tugged up. “Don’t I?”
She looked down at the white linen tablecloth. Piped music was playing around them, very romantic, while white-coated waiters tended to the crowded tables. “Not during the day, at least,” she said, qualifying her words. “When Margo and I were girls, you were always being hounded by somebody.”
He was watching her, his gaze purely possessive. “It goes with any kind of business, Kate. I’d hate a life of leisure.”
He probably would. He didn’t keep his body that fit and muscular by sitting behind a desk.
“I guess I would, too,” she mused. Her slender fingers touched the heavy silver knife of her place setting. “Sometimes my job gets unpleasant, but there are compensations.”
“I suppose there would be. You work with a lot of men, don’t you?” he asked.
There was an unflattering double meaning in his words. She looked directly into his searching eyes, trying not to be affected by the increase in her pulse from his magnetism. “Yes,” she said. “I work with a lot of men. Not just at the office, but in politics, rescue work, police work—and in all those places, I’m just one of the boys.”
His gaze dropped to her bodice. “So I see.”
“I don’t work in suggestive clothing,” she fired back. “I don’t make eyes at married men, and if you’re going to start making veiled remarks about what you saw in the bathhouse six years ago, I’m leaving this minute!”
“Sit down.”
His tone was like ice, his eyes frankly intimidating. The cold note in his voice made her feel sick inside. She sat down, shaking a little with reaction.
“I know what it looked like to you,” she said half under her breath, coloring as she realized the interest she’d raised in other diners, who glanced at the dark man and the pretty woman obviously having a lover’s quarrel. “But it wasn’t what you thought.”
“What I saw was obvious,” he returned. “Gerald was damned lucky. If it had been my niece, even if she’d invited it, I’d have broken him like a toothpick.”
That was in character. He fought like a tiger for his own. But not for Kate. He thought that she was little more than a tramp and that she didn’t need any protection. It surprised Kate sometimes that he was so willing to believe the worst about her, when everything pointed to the contrary. He’d known her for years and he’d been so kind to her. And then, in one afternoon, he’d done an about-face in his attitude toward her. She’d never understood why.
“Lucky Margo, having you to spoil her,” she said, with a wealth of pain in the words. She stared at her lap. “Tom and I never had that problem.”
“Your grandmother wasn’t poor,” he argued.
She clenched her teeth. “I didn’t mean money.” It was love she and Tom had lacked. Grandmother Walker, not a demonstrative person, had never made any concessions in her way of life for them. She’d demanded that they grow up without frills or the handicap of spoiling.
He paused while the waiter brought menus. Kate studied hers with no enthusiasm at all. He’d killed her appetite stone dead.
“What do you want?” he asked carelessly.
She glanced up at him with a speaking look, and he actually laughed.
“Talk about looks that could kill,” he murmured. “Were you wishing I was on the menu?”
“I hate you,” she said, and meant it. “The biggest mistake I’ve made in years was to agree to come out with you at all. No, I don’t want anything on the menu. I’d like to leave. You stay and enjoy your meal, and I’ll get a cab—”
“That isn’t all you’ll get if you don’t sit down, Kate,” he replied quietly. “I hate scenes.”
“I’ve never made one in my life until tonight,” she said shortly. Her green eyes were huge in her ashen face as she stared across the table at him. How could he treat her this way when she loved him to distraction?
He stared at her with a mingling of emotions, the strongest of which was desire. She was, he thought, the most delicious tidbit he’d ever seen. He’d spent years chiding himself for his unbridled passion for her. Now the barriers were down, and he couldn’t seem to handle the confusion she aroused in him. God, she was lovely! All his secret dreams of perfection, hauntingly sweet and seductive. He wondered how many other men had wanted her, had been with her, and the strength of his jealousy disturbed him. It didn’t matter, he told himself, he had to have her. Just once, he told himself. Just once, to
know that soft, sweet body in passion. Then the fever would be gone. He’d be free of her spell.
She couldn’t know that he’d suddenly seen her as a woman when she’d kissed that boy so hungrily. It had gotten worse when he’d confronted them in the bathhouse, and the desire he’d felt for her had almost knocked him to his knees.
He hadn’t even meant to take her out tonight. But the lure of her was irresistible. He couldn’t stop. And it wasn’t bad that she was experienced; he was even glad, in a way, because he had too many scruples about seducing innocents. If he made love to a virgin, he’d feel an obligation to marry her. It wasn’t a modern outlook, but then he wasn’t a modern man. He was country bred and raised, for all his money.
She looked sad, he thought, studying her. His own emotions confused and irritated him. He wanted her until she was a living obsession in his mind. He ached all over already, and he hadn’t even touched her. His dark eyes narrowed, studying her. She was lovely, all right. A walking, breathing temptation. Yes, it was just as well that she wasn’t innocent. If he didn’t believe her to be sophisticated, he’d never be able to seduce her.
He leaned back in his chair and let his eyes wander over her bodice, where bare skin peeked through the lacing. “Look at me.”
She stared back at him with trembling lips, almost shaking with fury. He’d ruined it. All her beautiful dreams had crumbled. Her voice choked when she spoke. “I shouldn’t have come with you. Roger Dean offered me a nice pizza. I should have settled for that.”
His chin lifted. “Roger who?”
“Roger Dean,” she shot back, gratified that he looked irritated. “He’s a reporter for one of the other papers. A handsome and very nice man,” she added. “And he likes me just the way I am.”
So she did have other men. That touched something vulnerable inside him and hurt it. Unsmiling, he stared at her. “Did you turn down a date with him to come out with me?” he asked, as if he expected she did things like that often.