by Diana Palmer
“My, you’re in a good mood this morning, Merlyn,” Lila said. “I must go with you on your next night out.”
“Lila!” Mrs. Radner said curtly. “You shouldn’t encourage this kind of thing. God knows, there’s enough immorality in the world.”
“Spending the night alone in a Holiday Inn is immoral?” Merlyn asked, recovering from her lapse. Her dark eyebrows lifted as she stared at Mrs. Radner. “How?”
The older woman looked stunned. She faltered, searching for words. “I assumed…”
“Miss Forrest,” Cameron began again, and his black eyes glared holes in her, “you were asked to be in by midnight.”
“No, I wasn’t, Mr. Thorpe. I was ordered to be in by midnight,” she retorted. “I don’t respond well to orders, even when they’re given by exciting dark men.”
“Cameron,” Delle interrupted, “don’t you think…”
“Keep out of this, Delle,” Cameron replied curtly, as if a mere woman’s comments weren’t worth listening to.
Delle meekly inclined her head toward her plate, and Merlyn glowered at Delle. “Are you going to let him talk to you that way?” she burst out. “My goodness, you don’t have to sit there and take orders like a family pet!”
Delle looked shocked, but her expression was nothing compared to Cameron’s. He threw down his napkin as if it were a gauntlet.
“That’s enough,” he told Merlyn, and his voice was like deep, icy water. “That’s more than enough.”
“You said it, honey,” Merlyn replied with a contemptuous laugh as she got to her feet, oblivious to Charlotte’s glare and Lila’s smothered grin. “I’d choke having to eat beside a male chauvinist like you. If you’ll all excuse me, I’m going to freshen up.”
She got up with a general nod in the direction of the guests and went upstairs.
“Male supremacist, sitting there like the first Caesar,” she muttered, stripping off her clothes and coiling her long hair up under a borrowed shower cap as she went toward the bathroom. “And that simpering child sitting there, lapping it up!” she hissed. She turned on the water and stepped under it, quickly soaping herself and as quickly washing off the lather. She grabbed a towel and dried herself, ripped off the shower cap and shook her hair dry. Cameron had made her furious enough, but that Charlotte Radner had really set her temper on fire. Snob! How dare that woman make such assumptions about her? Of course, she had to admit that she’d deliberately begun to give the wrong impression. But she was probably worth twice as much as the Radners, and she hated being put down. If this was how poor people lived, it wasn’t very pleasant. It made her think. Which was probably what her father had intended from the beginning, she thought angrily. And again she wondered if he had more than a nodding acquaintance with Cameron Thorpe. He couldn’t have picked a better adversary for her if he’d spent his life searching. Then she realized she was on the wrong track. Her father would have been in search of a soul mate for her, not an adversary.
She walked back into her bedroom, sleek and elegant in her nudity, her high breasts in perfect proportion to a body that was sensuous and graceful and unconscious of its own power. And as she walked into the bedroom, Cameron Thorpe walked in the door.
Her eyes widened. So did his. They went over her like dark fingers, tracing every soft curve, every long line, with an intensity that froze her into position like a nymph caught bathing.
“Damn you!” she whispered as sanity returned. She dived for the silky blue coverlet, and jerked it around her. Her face went blood red. No man had ever seen her without her clothes, not even that jackass she’d been engaged to. There had been very little more than kissing between them, in fact, which was one thing that had led to her suspicion that her money was the attraction for Adam, not her body. Or her heart.
“How interesting,” Cameron murmured, watching her reaction as she shrank against the post of the canopy over her wide bed. He closed the door behind him with a hard thud and went toward her.
She vaulted across the bed, and got behind the elegant blue wing chair, glaring at him over it. “What are you doing in here?” she demanded.
“You sound quite hysterical, Miss Forrest,” he commented. He rammed his hands in his pockets and smiled slowly. The smile changed him, made him wildly sensual. The big muscles in his arms were outlined by the short-sleeved knit shirt he was wearing, and so was the muscular breadth of his chest. His slacks were close fitting, emphasizing the powerful muscles of his long legs, the slender lines of his hips and stomach. He was devastating, physically at least. And she hated herself for noticing that.
“I’m not hysterical.”
“You said you were just going to freshen up. I assumed you’d had time for that by now.”
He sounded reasonable, but she didn’t feel reasonable. She wanted to throw things. Her fingers trembled where they held the coverlet against her breasts.
“Whatever you wanted, can’t it wait until I get my clothes on?” she asked in a high-pitched tone.
“What I had in mind would work better with them off,” he replied, moving toward her again.
“No hitting, if you please,” she said, shoving the chair at him. “My insurance doesn’t have a clause for assault and battery.”
“I wouldn’t hit you,” he said. “I just want your full attention.” He nudged the chair aside with his hip and kept coming. “Nervous, Jane?” he asked with a cold smile. “Isn’t that what your friends call you?”
“Yes, but you don’t fall into that category. I’m warning you, Mr. Thorpe, I have acquaintances who just adore suing people on my behalf!”
“So have I. Pay attention, Miss Forrest, because I don’t intend to repeat this. I don’t know what kind of half-baked boys you’re used to, but in this house I’m the master, and what I say goes.”
“Do you wear a crown, sir, and have little crests sewn on your underwear?’’ she asked. She backed behind the night table, using it like a shield. Part of her was nervous, but another part was wildly excited by that glitter in his eyes, the movement of his powerful body. She’d never tried to enrage a man before, but there was something about Cameron’s dark, somber masculinity that intrigued her. She couldn’t help but wonder what was under the mask.
He stood looking at her, his eyes narrow and intent, his head slightly cocked to one side. “Hiding?” he asked in a voice soft with menace.
She laughed again. “Just taking cover. Now, Mr. Thorpe, you knew from the beginning that I didn’t just lie down and let people walk over me. I’m not any good at taking orders, and I don’t intend to take them from you.”
His dark eyes glittered with amusement and something deeper, more dangerous. “You’re afraid of me, aren’t you?” he asked, studying her posture. “Where’s all that bravado you had in front of my guests?”
“It’s not fear of you,” she promised with a blatant smile. “I’m just afraid that if I don’t keep my distance, I might wrestle you down on the floor, that’s all.” Gathering her courage, she batted her eyelashes at him. “Oh, Mr. Thorpe, you’re sooo sexy!”
He made a rough sound. “Think so? Well, honey, you’d have to pay me.”
He turned to leave, and she lost her head. “Damn you!” she breathed with glittering fury. She glared after him with eyes full of hatred.
He turned with his hand on the doorknob and studied her one last time. “You have the most beautiful body I’ve ever seen,” he said unexpectedly. “Are you a virgin?”
She held the coverlet tighter. “Guessing?”
His eyes wandered over her. “Miss Forrest, an experienced woman doesn’t run for cover at the first sign of male interest. Just for future reference.”
She tossed her hair. “I don’t need instructions. Least of all from someone who sleeps in a bed full of ice cubes.”
His eyebrows arched. “Do you think I do?” He put his hands in his pockets and studied her curiously.
“I’ll give you my character analysis of you on the day I leave here,�
�� she promised.
He looked her over again, with calculating eyes. “Delle and her mother left a few minutes ago, by the way, and I’m on my way out now,” he said with a cool smile. “Thanks to you, I had some explaining to do. They seem to feel that you’re here for my benefit, not my mother’s. I set them straight.” He lifted his square jaw and pursed his lips. “There’s just one thing you’d better keep in mind. In case you don’t know, I pay the bills. Including my mother’s. That makes me your real boss, and if you want trouble, put me in the same position twice.”
“You can count on my cooperation, sir,” she said huskily, and grinned.
“I thought you’d see it my way. I’m glad we had this little talk, Jane,” he added with a superior smile. “Just dig up bodies for my mother, and you and I will get along fine.”
“I’ll do my very best,” she promised. An impish smile touched her full lips. “But just hold your breath until I lay my heart at your feet again.”
Amazingly, he laughed. And it was genuine, for once. “Damned brat,” he muttered as he jerked open the door. “Too bad we’re from such different worlds, Jane Eyre,” he said with a curt laugh. “I think I could have made you lay more than your heart at my feet a few years back.”
She blinked. “A few years back?”
“Before I learned what devious, twisted minds you women have. Before Amanda’s mother taught me how beautifully deceit can be clothed.” He rammed his hands in his pockets and stared at her. “I don’t have any inclination to lose my heart again.”
“Delle would be crushed to hear you say that,” Merlyn replied.
“Delle will make a good wife,” he returned. “She’s young and impressionable and easily led. She dresses beautifully and she knows how to be a good hostess. The perfect businessman’s wife. Our marriage will be a very profitable merger.”
“Mama comes with her,” she reminded him. “And she isn’t easily led.”
“Mama is a barracuda. But I’m a shark.”
She wouldn’t have touched that line with a cattle prod.
His eyes wandered down the coverlet and back up again, and there was something in them that frightened Merlyn more than his earlier anger.
“I don’t like domineering men,” she said.
“I wasn’t aware that your job required you to like me.”
She laughed. “Praise the Lord.”
His head tilted and he smiled slowly. “You’re full of fire, Miss Forrest,” he murmured. “Like a firecracker. I’d forgotten how exciting it could be.…” As if the observation angered him, his smile vanished and the glitter was back in his eyes. “Stop prodding me, for your own good. I make a bad enemy. And since you apparently don’t work for the fun of it, I’d hate to see you kicked out the door over an insignificant disagreement.”
***
He inclined his head like a conquering general and went out, leaving her puzzled, excited, and on edge. She had underestimated him. But it was a mistake she wouldn’t make again.
“They’re gone, Merlyn,” Amanda whispered as Merlyn came downstairs to find the little girl waiting for her. Amanda grinned. “Now we can get back to normal.”
“Don’t you like Miss Radner?” Merlyn asked gently.
Amanda glowered. “She doesn’t like me,” she muttered. “She looks at me as if she feels sorry for me. Just you wait, someday I’ll be just as elegant as she is, and I’ll feel sorry for her, on account of she’ll be old and ugly!”
Merlyn laughed, tugging the young girl against her. “You’re pretty enough to suit me, Miss Thorpe. And all you need is a haircut, a big smile, and some confidence to make you into a raving beauty.”
Amanda stopped and looked up at her, wide-eyed. “Do you really think so?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Could you cut my hair?”
Merlyn pursed her lips. “When I get through working, I’ll ask your father if I can take you into town to a beauty shop. Okay?”
“I’ll ask him, when he comes back next weekend. He said he was going to,” Amanda volunteered. She blushed. “He doesn’t like women, mostly, except for Miss Radner. But he likes me.”
“Yes, darling, I’m sure he does. I like you, too.”
Amanda smiled. “You’re not bad, for a grown-up. You’re sort of different.”
Yes, I’m that, Merlyn thought mischievously. Very different from the sort of grown-up you’re used to. Like Cameron Thorpe. She wanted to have nothing to do with a man who could contemplate marriage to a woman just because she suited his life-style. She wondered if he really thought his Delle was such a prize. Despite her beauty, she struck Merlyn as a passionless woman, appealing to look at, but that was all. That was his business, though. Hers was going to be keeping out of his way. She wouldn’t heel on command for any overbearing stuffed shirt, but on the other hand she didn’t want to have to go home and admit defeat. Her father was already sure she couldn’t win this bet; she wasn’t going to prove him right. No, she’d just have to depend on her sense of humor to keep Cameron Thorpe at bay. Besides, there was always the possibility that he’d stay away from the lake house for the duration of her month’s employment.
***
Cameron’s absence was a blessing. For the rest of the week, the lake was delightfully peaceful. Merlyn took Amanda into town, with her grandmother’s permission—Lila had said the child’s hair was none of Cameron’s business—and had her hair cut. As an afterthought, she bought her a new dress, too—a lovely, frilly thing in blue that suited the young girl.
“You shouldn’t spend your money on me,” Amanda protested. “You don’t make a lot. I heard Grandmother arguing about it with my father. He said…” She stopped, flushing.
“He said what?” Merlyn probed softly.
“Well, it was something mean.” She glanced up apprehensively. “He said you weren’t worth what you were getting paid and that Grandmother ought to get someone else. But Grandmama stuck up for you,” she continued quickly. “She said if he fired you, he could go back to Charleston and stay there. She’s real mad about him bringing Delle and Mrs. Radner here. She says Daddy only wants to marry Delle on account of she’s rich.”
In other words, Lila was blackmailing him. Merlyn felt miserable for the rest of the day about his opinion of her. It shouldn’t have been so hurtful, but it was.
“I ought to resign,” she told Lila finally, as they sat together at the kitchen table and had coffee after Amanda had gone to bed. “Amanda told me about the argument you had with your son.”
Lila grinned. “Did she? Don’t worry about Cam, I can handle him.”
“I don’t want to cause trouble.” Merlyn stared into her black coffee. “He antagonizes me, though. Sometimes I can’t help it. But I’ll do my best to be pleasant to him, if it will keep the peace.”
“But I don’t want you to be pleasant to him,” Lila said surprisingly, with a twinkle in her eyes. “He was angry when he left here. Angrier than I’ve see him in years. It was a pleasant change from his usual indifference. You’ve shaken him, Merlyn. Keep it up.”
“That would be risky,” Merlyn murmured with a delicate shudder, remembering his threat.
“I’ll protect you,” Lila promised. She searched Merlyn’s eyes. “Merlyn, did you feel the undercurrents, when the Radners were here?”
Merlyn shifted restlessly. “It’s really none of my affair.”
“Delle’s father has a very profitable investment corporation. She’ll inherit it. Cam has decided, in a coldblooded way, that she’ll make him a good wife.” She sighed miserably. “You see, dear, my husband left us deeply in debt. He borrowed too much, and he had friends who were too kind to refuse him credit. When he died, there were insurmountable bills. We even sold the family estate, which our ancestors built over a hundred years ago, to defray the debt. But it still wasn’t enough. Cam is slowly getting us back on our feet, and what I make with my writing helps.” She laughed softly. “I won’t deny that having money in the family agai
n would be a tremendous boost to our small assets, but I don’t want Cam to ruin his whole life just to get out of debt.”
Merlyn studied her hands. “He doesn’t seem the kind of man who’d marry solely for money,” she murmured, looking up into Lila’s sur prised face.
“It isn’t just that,” Lila returned. “You’re very perceptive, Merlyn. No, it isn’t only money. He wants a home and a mother for Amanda. He wants permanence.” She shrugged. “He’s rather rootless right now. He lives and works in Charleston, but he’s always out looking for new investors. He’s spent a lot of time in Atlanta lately, courting the head of a new corporation that’s locating back home. Beating out the competition way ahead of time,” she explained with a grin.
“Why Delle?” Merlyn asked with genuine curiosity.
Lila grimaced. “He met her at a party, liked her poise, and set out to court her. I don’t know what he sees in her. She’s so fussy about her hair and clothes that I don’t imagine he even gets to touch her, and she’s years too young for him. But,” she sighed, “he doesn’t listen to me anymore.”
***
During the next three days they worked at a comfortable, steady pace, while Amanda fished and played on the lake.
“I love this,” Merlyn said on Friday, as she lounged on the dock with her legs hanging off the side and a fishing pole in her hand. She was wearing a blue tube top, cut-offs that showed her tanned, slender legs to their best advantage, and a floppy hat on her head.
“What, fishing?” Lila asked as she sunbathed nearby. It was the first real break they’d taken, and they felt they both deserved it. They’d gotten through a tremendous amount of work.
“Fishing. Working. Being here on the lake.” Merlyn shifted her pole experimentally to make sure the bait was still on the hook, and tossed it back in. “I hadn’t realized how pleasant it could be.”
“Why do you think I come here to work?” Lila laughed. “Of course, I’m usually alone with Tilly and Amanda. Cameron doesn’t often come here.”