by Diana Palmer
“It wasn’t like that!” she protested, going red at the memory.
He chucked softly. “Oh, yes, it was.” He tilted her face up and she felt his breath on her lips. “Kate…” he murmured. He bent and his mouth whispered against hers slowly, warmly, making her aware of him in a silence that seemed to catch fire. The lazy, deceptively comforting way he was kissing her made her hungry. Her nails involuntarily bit into his shoulders as he began to build the kiss, tempting, tantalizing her, until a soft, shocked moan broke from her lips. He knew exactly what he was doing, she thought dizzily, and if she didn’t stop him right now, she knew what was going to happen.
She pulled against his slowly tightening arms. “Please…don’t,” she whispered achingly.
His mouth bit at hers with a slow, easy pressure. “Why not?” he murmured, a teasing note in his voice. “There has to be a first time, Kate.”
‘I’d hate you,” she managed, her voice growing weaker as her knees seemed to buckle under her.
‘Afterward, maybe,” he whispered gruffly. His big arms tightened around her. “Oh, God, Kate, I could love you out of your mind.”
Her eyes closed. If only he could love her, in the nonphysical as well as the physical sense—the thought made silver music in her mind. If he could love her as she loved him…involuntarily, she pressed closer to that big, husky body, feeling the strength of it against her with a sense of wonder, of pleasure that bordered on faintness. She loved him so…!
His arms tightened for just an instant and then relaxed. He moved away from her, back to his deep armchair, and she felt a sense of loss, an emptiness, as she watched him sit in the wide leather chair. He looked older suddenly, and there were hard lines in his face.
“Go to bed, Kate,” he said wearily. “It was a nice interlude, but you don’t have to humor the blind man any more tonight. Tomorrow we’ll get back to work.”
“But, I wasn’t…!” she burst out when she realized the direction his thoughts had taken. He thought her response was…pity!
“Get the hell to bed! You can’t give me what I need,” he growled harshly. “But if you stay here, I may ask you to try. I need a woman, damn you! Anything in skirts would do, but you happen to be handy, is that clear enough?” he asked when she hesitated.
She flinched as if he’d struck her. And that was all it had meant to him! Those moments when she felt all of paradise in his arms, his possessive mouth, it had only been an interlude to him—something to satisfy a passing need. She turned and went out the door without another word.
Hours seemed to go by before she slept, and the phone ringing in the middle of the night didn’t help her shattered nerves. There was something vaguely ominous about that splintering sound echoing through the dark villa. Something final, like a death knell….
When she went down to breakfast the next morning, she knew why she’d thought that. A woman was sitting beside Garet Cambridge at the breakfast table, her slender hand possessively on his arm, her eyes sparkling as she chattered away. She turned at Kate’s entrance, and her identity was immediately obvious. She had curling blond hair and eyes the blue of a spring sky.
“You must be Kate,” the woman said with a flash of ice in the glance she turned on the younger woman, and a smile that only touched her wide mouth.
“Yes,” Kate said hesitantly, her eyes going to Garet, who was sitting quietly at the head of the table, his dark face giving nothing away.
“I’m Anna Sutton,” the blond said. “Garet’s fiancée, you know,” she added possessively.
Cambridge stiffened almost imperceptibly. “Ex-fiancée,” he said calmly, setting down his emptied coffee cup to light a cigarette.
Anna lifted a perfectly manicured hand to her short, curling hair. “Temporarily only, darling,” she cooed, “just until you feel I’ve been punished enough for walking out on you, we both know that.”
Kate sat down across from the newcomer and exchanged a sharp glance with Yama when he brought her breakfast in.
“I didn’t know you had a live-in secretary, darling,” Anna remarked to Garet as she picked at her breakfast. “Where’s Pattie?”
“Still at the office, I suppose,” he replied quietly. “I’m working on a book, Anna. I can’t dictate it long distance.”
That voice…Kate stared at the older woman, and she recognize it all at once. The cabin on the lake, when she’d called to ask about Garet after the accident—this was the woman who’d answered the phone! And if she recognized Kate’s voice, it would be all over.
“You’re quiet this morning, milkmaid,” Garet said speculatively, his sightless eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “Nothing to say?”
Kate stared into her coffee. “No, sir.”
“Docile, aren’t you?” he growled.
“Yes, sir,” she murmured.
“Have I missed something?” Anna asked irritably. She glanced from one to the other of them with a frown between her wide-spaced eyes.
“Only a few knock-down, drag-out arguments,” Garet said with a hint of a smile. “Young Kate has a streak of impudence in her.”
“Only when I’m pushed over the edge,” Kate replied darkly, putting down her fork. “I’d like to be excused.”
“No doubt you would, but just sit the hell where you are, Kate,” Cambridge said harshly, freezing her as she tried to rise. “I plan to get some work done today. That is what I pay your salary for, not to play hookey with that damned journalist!”
Kate bit her lip to keep the hot words back, and the smug look Anna gave her didn’t help any. She didn’t like Garet’s girlfriend. One look was enough to tell her that the older woman’s only interest in him was his money. She didn’t have the light of love in her pale blue eyes when she looked at the big man beside her. There was only a shrewd, cold look there, as if she was measuring the size of his wallet every time she looked at him.
But Garet couldn’t see that. His big hand slid along the wooden finish of the table to catch Anna’s and squeeze it. He smiled, and there was no mockery in it.
“Tonight,” he told her, “we’ll go down to the beach and you can describe the moonlight on the sea to me.”
Anna leaned forward with a sigh, and it was a pity, Kate thought bitterly, that Cambridge couldn’t have the benefit of Anna’s low neckline. “Oh, darling,” Anna breathed, “I’ll describe everything to you. It’ll be just like old times.”
Kate wanted to be sick. She wanted to scream at him. But all she could do was sit and pretend not to be affected.
“I’ll have to get some work done first, however,” Garet said with a grin. “Make yourself scarce while Kate and I finish up the paperwork. Put on your bikini and decorate the beach. Tell Jacques to get you a beach umbrella so you don’t burn that delicate complexion.”
“Oh, Garet, you remembered,” Anna said. She took his big hand in both of hers. “Darling, I’m so sorry about your eyes,” she whispered brokenly, although there wasn’t a trace of sorrow in her cold eyes. “I’m sorry I walked out on you, it was just such a shock…but I’m back now, and I’ll take care of you.”
“For how long?” he asked conversationally.
“As long as you need me, darling,” she purred.
Garet only smiled, feeling for the ashtray to crush out his cigarette. “Run along,” he told her.
“Yes, darling.” Anna got up and reached over to plant a sweet, long kiss against his hard mouth. Kate turned her head away, because she couldn’t bear the sight.
Then Anna was gone, ignoring Kate completely, and they were alone.
“What do you think of her?” he asked quietly.
“She’s lovely, and when do you want to start work?” she asked tightly.
One dark eyebrow went up and he smiled. “Jealous, milkmaid?”
“Of what? Your wallet?” she asked flatly, “because that’s the only part of you she’s interested in!”
Something like amusement flashed in his dark green eyes. “Not quite,” he said softly.
; Kate blushed all the way to her throat, almost knocking over her coffee cup in her haste to get out of her seat.
“I’ll bet your face is redder than a sunset,” he remarked.
“I never blush,” she told him firmly.
“Of course.” He got up, feeling his way to the door and along the passageway to his study, right behind Kate. “Someday, Kate….”
“Someday, what?” she asked
He stopped in his tracks, sweat breaking out, beading up on his forehead, and he leaned heavily against the wall, one big hand going to his head.
“Oh, my God…!” he groaned, and his eyes closed against a pain that Kate could only imagine.
Eight
“Garet, what it it?” she cried, running to him. She caught his big arms and stared up at his contorted face with horror in her pale brown eyes. “Oh, please, tell me what’s wrong!”
“My…head,” he groaned. His eyes closed tightly, and his hand worried them for several seconds before she felt him relax.
“Are you all right?” she asked, in a voice more laced with emotion than she realized.
“I’m all right. It was just a pain, Kate,” he said gently.
“No, it wasn’t!” she said, a break in her voice. “Garet, you’ve got to see a doctor.”
“What the hell for?” he growled impatiently. “So he can tell me to learn to live with it? I can’t even see the blurs and shadows anymore! It’s permanent!”
She wanted to sink through the floor. Her slender body seemed to shrink against his.
“Oh, is something wrong?” Anna asked, joining them in the hallway in a shimmering blue bikini with a towel clutched in one manicured hand.
“Mr. Cambridge is having pain,” Kate told her in a cool tone.
Anna shrugged. “One of the unpleasant side effects, I imagine, isn’t it darling?” she asked Garet with a smile. “I’m sure it passes. Well, I’m going on down to the beach, I’ll be back in a few hours. Bye!”
Kate glared after her even when the door closed and cut her off from view. She couldn’t remember feeling such a surge of unbearable rage before.
“Aren’t you going to say something, milkmaid?” Garet asked, his deep voice amused even though the hard lines hadn’t left his face.
Kate’s soft mouth pouted. “Whatever I said would be either too much or too little. Anyway,” she added tightly, “she’s your business.”
“Is she, Kate?” He caught her arms and pulled her against his big, husky body, holding her easily when she struggled instinctively to be let go of.
“Mr. Cambridge…!” she grumbled.
“A few minutes ago, it was ‘Garet,”’ he reminded her smoothly. His big hands spread against her shoulder blades, drawing her relentlessly closer into an embrace that melted her hunger for freedom.
“A…a few minutes ago, I was worried,” she said unsteadily.
“I know.” His chest rose and fell against her. “I’m indestructible, didn’t you know?”
She rested her cheek against the front of his brown silky shirt with a sigh. “I only wish you were,” she said quietly. “I wish you’d see a doctor.”
“You are worried,” he murmured, as if he found the thought unbelievable.
Her eyes closed. “No, I’m not!” she burst out. “What should I care if you’re too stubborn and hard-headed, too…!”
Soft, deep laughter cut into the impassioned speech and his arms tightened. “Hush,” he murmured. “Kiss me.”
She felt the blush claim her cheeks and resisted, even knowing he couldn’t see it, when he reached down and tilted her face up to his.
“Don’t,” she murmured.
“Kiss me, you little coward,” he teased gently.
“Why?” she asked, but her eyes were already on the broad curve of that chiseled mouth, and she remembered the sweet, hard pressure of it with a sense of wonder.
“Do we need reasons, Kate?” he asked, suddenly serious. There was a strange darkness in the green eyes that she couldn’t understand.
“No,” she admitted, going on tiptoe to touch her soft mouth to his. “No, we don’t need reasons, we don’t…oh, Garet…” she breathed.
She felt a rough hand come up behind her head as he forced her lips hard against his.
“Like this,” he ground out against her mouth, his breath coming unsteadily. “Pretend you’re in love with me, little girl. Show me how it would be….”
Her arms went up around his neck and she threw caution to the winds. Her body swayed against his like a young willow as the kiss went on and on, a mutual hunger in it that was like nothing she’d ever felt. He cherished her young mouth as if he wanted nothing else in life but the touch and taste of it, his big arms cradling her tenderly. She’d never known that an embrace could be so gentle, that a kiss could be a linking of minds and hearts so intense and pleasurable. There was nothing of lust in it.
When he finally drew away, she stared up at him in a daze, speechless, too shaken for words.
His face was like stone, hard and quiet and utterly devoid of expression. But the hands that pressed against her back were trembling, and the heart beneath his massive chest was shaking him with its hard pulsing.
“Have you ever kissed another man like that?” he asked roughly.
“No,” she admitted without thinking.
He drew a steadying breath and let her go. “We’d better get some work done,” he said tightly, turning away.
She followed him into the study and automatically picked up her notepad and pen, dropping into the chair beside his desk while he fitted his body into the swivel chair behind it.
“Is…is your head better?” she asked softly.
A whisper of a smile touched his mouth. “You have a foolproof method of chasing my headaches away, Kate,” he said gently, and when she realized what he meant, she felt her hands grow cold as ice.
“No comeback?” he teased.
“I…I shouldn’t have…” she murmured.
“Why not?” he asked, and the smile faded.
“There’s Miss Sutton,” she said miserably.
“Yes,” he said thoughtfully, scowling. “There’s Miss Sutton. You wouldn’t be jealous?”
She stiffened. “You’re my boss, Mr. Cambridge, not my lover.”
“I will be,” he said quietly, and there was a wealth of meaning in the lazy smile that touched his chiseled mouth.
She blushed. “No, you won’t!” she burst out.
But he only laughed. “Got your pad, Kate? Let’s get to work.”
Anna Sutton was brilliantly talkative at dinner, monopolizing Garet all through the meal as the vivid sunset filtered in through the French windows and gave the villa a coral glow. Kate picked at her food, hardly tasting anything. Her mind was muddled with thoughts that didn’t bear sharing.
She wondered idly what kind of a game Garet Cambridge was playing. He seemed to be as infatuated with Anna as ever, but why had he kissed Kate that way? Was he just playing one woman off against the other? Was it some kind of revenge on womankind because Anna had deserted him?
“You don’t talk very much anymore, Kate,” Garet remarked suddenly, cutting into her thoughts.
She lifted her face in time to catch the venomous look Anna threw at her.
“I…I couldn’t think of anything to say,” she stammered.
“You aren’t pining for the young journalist, are you?” he demanded suddenly, harshly, and the black scowl jutted over those sightless eyes.
Young journalist? She hadn’t given Bart Lindsey a thought…. “No, sir,” she replied quietly.
“A reporter?” Anna burst out. “You’re letting your secretary associate with a reporter?”
“‘Date’ is the word,” Cambridge said darkly. “And no, I’m not letting her.”
Kate glared at him. “I can date whom I please. You don’t own me.”
“That isn’t the impression I got this afternoon,” he said with a smug arrogance that caused her to bl
ush furiously.
Anna stared at her suspiciously. “Is there something I missed?”
“You might say that.” Garet grinned. “Is she blushing?”
“Like a fire truck,” Anna said angrily.
“I…I wish you wouldn’t,” Kate murmured in a husky tone.
Anna frowned. “Your voice is so familiar,” she muttered, and Kate felt her heart stop. “I’m almost certain I’ve heard it somewhere before.”
“I don’t see how,” Cambridge said, finishing Yama’s well-turned steak. “Unless you’ve ever been to Austin?”
Anna shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t travel in those circles,” she said haughtily, “if you mean cattle country. I believe that’s what you told me your secretary’s people were into.”
Kate wanted to throttle her, but she kept her temper. She had enough trouble wondering what minute the blonde might remember Kate’s unsteady voice asking about Garet Cambridge that day on the lake, after the accident. What if she recognized it? What if….
“Is your headache better, darling?” Anna asked him.
“Much,” he said with a secretive smile, and Kate kept her face down so that Anna wouldn’t see the blush.
It was later that same night when the phone rang in the study, and Garet picked up the receiver before she could get to it. She watched his face change as he listened, asking an occasional question, and before he was through, Kate knew with chilling certainty what he was hearing.
He hung up and leaned back in his chair, frowning thoughtfully. “How interesting,” he muttered to himself.
She looked up from her typing. “Sir?” she asked.
He sighed and lit a cigarette. “Remember that private eye I hired, Kate?” he asked conversationally. “He’s traced the girl.”
Her blood froze—froze in her veins—and she could feel the temperature of her hands drop degree by degree where they rested on the keys of the typewriter.
“Has he?” she asked in a husky voice.
He smiled, satisfied with himself. “She lived down the beach from me; for a while, at least. She’s disappeared now. Probably scared to death I’d go looking for her if I lived.” His eyes narrowed. “She worked for a writer—Maude Niccole, you might have heard of her, Kate, she writes romantic fiction. Unfortunately,” he sighed, “we can’t locate her. She was in Paris, but she left with her father and didn’t leave a forwarding address. I’ve got her beach house under surveillance, though. If she comes back, I’ll know it.”