Almost Forever (17 page)

Realizing that he was shaking with the need to take her again, he turned away from the bed while he still could. Where Claire was concerned, his self-control was almost negligible.

He went into the living room, wolfed down several of the sandwiches and drank the pot of coffee he'd made, not worrying about the effect of the caffeine on his system so late at night. A deep frown furrowed his brow as he considered the situation with Claire.

Until that night he hadn't doubted his ability to talk her around eventually. Never in his life had he been denied anything he really wanted. Nature had given him an enormous advantage in coupling his face and body with a superior intellect. But for the first time he wasn't certain that he would win. He had seen behind Claire's shield and, for the first time, seen the vulnerability of the real woman and realized the necessity for that shield. She felt too much, loved too deeply, gave herself too completely…and betrayal would strike a crippling blow at that too-tender heart.

Whatever happened, he had to make certain that she couldn't hide from him, and he knew her well enough to realize that would be her first form of defense. She would do whatever she could to put distance between them, mentally if not physically. Time was on her side. Soon he would have to return to Dallas, and they would be separated by more than two hundred miles. He would be traveling to other cities, putting even more distance between them. He considered his options, and a plan formed in his mind. The thing to do was to take her to Dallas with him—the problem was in getting her there.

He cleaned up after himself then went into the bedroom to check on her, to assure himself that she was really all right. She was still sleeping soundly, and a healthy pink color was
beginning to return to her cheeks as she rested. Thoughtfully he looked at her alarm clock, then picked it up to make certain the alarm was turned off. Let her sleep as long as she needed. He wrote a short note and propped it on the clock, then let himself out of the apartment. He had plans to make, and it wasn't too late at night to set them in motion.

A faint grin relieved the grimness of his expression as he drove through the rainy Houston night. It wouldn't hurt Rome to be jarred out of a sound sleep by a telephone call. After all, it had been Rome's call three weeks before that had pulled Max out of the bed he'd been sharing with Claire. Fate had a way of evening things out.

W
hen Claire woke the next morning she felt rested for the first time in weeks, and she lay in drowsy relaxation, waiting for the alarm to go off. The minutes ticked by without the alarm, and finally she opened a curious eye to check the time. The first thing she noticed was that the room was very light for so early in the morning, and the second thing she noticed was that it was almost nine-thirty. “Oh, no!” She hated being late to anything, even by a few minutes, and she was more than a few minutes late. She should have been at work an hour-and-a-half ago!

She scrambled out of bed, still a little disoriented from sleeping so long, and stared down at herself in confusion. Why was she wearing a blouse and slip instead of a nightgown? Then memory flooded back, and her face heated. Max! She'd gone to sleep on the couch. Max must have put her to bed. At least he hadn't stripped her; she couldn't have borne that. It was bad enough that he'd handled her so easily while she'd
been asleep, undressing her and putting her to bed as if he had every right to be so familiar with her. She would have preferred that he let her sleep on the couch.

But that explained why she had slept so late—he hadn't set her alarm. She looked at the clock then noticed the note beside it. She didn't even have to pick it up to read it; the handwriting was a series of bold slashes written with a strong hand.
Don't worry about being late. You need the rest. I'll handle it with Bronson—Max.

She grabbed the note and crumpled it with a despairing cry. That was just what she needed, for him to “handle” it with Sam! What would he say? That he'd left her in bed, and she was so tired that he was going to let her sleep late? Sam would have to pull one of the other secretaries in to handle the office, and the reason why she was late would spread through the office like wildfire.

Her stomach rumbled, and she realized that she was both very hungry and very grungy from having slept in her clothes and makeup. She was already so late that she would gain nothing by hurrying to work. She decided to take her time. After a long shower, a shampoo and a leisurely breakfast, she would feel better. She wouldn't go to work looking thrown-together; she would be professional if it killed her.

It was almost noon when she walked into the office, but her stomach was pleasantly full, her hair washed and pulled back into an attractive chignon, and she wore her favorite dress, a navy-blue blouson with white piping. Her efforts to bolster her spirits had worked, or perhaps it was the extra sleep she'd had. For whatever reason, she felt almost calm. There was indeed another secretary at her desk, a young woman who had been with the company only a few months, and whose eyes widened with surprise when she saw Claire. “Miss Westbrook! Are you feeling better? Mr.
Bronson said you fainted last night and wouldn't be working today.”

Bless Sam for covering for her! Claire said calmly, “I'm feeling much better, thank you. I was very tired, nothing else.”

She relieved the young woman and sent her back to her own job. When she sat down at her desk, Claire felt more normal, as if things were settling back into their rightful place. Then the door to Sam's office opened, and someone stood there watching her. It wasn't Sam—she had never felt that tingle of awareness sweep over her from Sam's gaze. Without looking at Max, she gathered her notes on the documents that needed typing.

“Leave those,” he ordered, coming to stand behind her. “I'm taking you to lunch.”

“Thank you, but I'm not hungry. I've just had breakfast.”

“Then you can watch me eat.”

“Thank you, no,” she repeated. “I have a lot to do—”

“This isn't personal,” he interrupted. “It concerns your job.”

Her hands stilled. Of course. Why hadn't she thought of that? Sam would no longer need a secretary, so she would no longer have a job. The guarantees that applied to the others could hardly be expected to apply to her. She raised shocked eyes to Max, trying to cope with the idea of being so abruptly unemployed. There were other jobs, of course. Houston was a boomtown, and she would find other work, but would she enjoy it so much and would it pay so well? Though her apartment wasn't an expensive one like Max's, it was nice and in a good section of town. If she had to take a large cut in pay, she wouldn't be able to afford it. For a terrible moment she saw herself losing not only her job but her home.

Max reached down and pulled her to her feet. His eyes were gleaming with the success he'd had in putting his plan into motion. “We'll go to Riley's. It isn't quite noon, so we should get a good table away from the crowd.”

Claire was silent as they left the building and crossed the street. It was a hot spring, with the daytime temperatures already climbing into the low nineties, and though the sky was a deep, clear blue now, the forecast was for more thunderstorms in the afternoon. Even on the short walk to Riley's her navy-blue dress began to feel too warm. Worry ate at her. How much notice would she be given? Two weeks? A month? How long it would take to move Sam completely into research?

They just beat the lunch crowd at Riley's and got one of the secluded booths in the back. Claire ordered a glass of iced tea, earning a hard look from Max. “You might eat a little something—you've lost weight, and you had precious little to spare.”

“I'm not hungry.”

“So you said. The point is, you should eat even though you aren't hungry to gain back the weight you've lost.”

Why did he keep harping about her weight? She had lost only a pound or two, and she had always bordered on thinness, anyway. She had other things to worry about. “Are you firing me?” she asked, keeping her expression blank.

His eyebrows lifted. “Why should I fire you?”

“I can think of several reasons. The most immediate is that my job is being phased out, since Sam won't need a secretary in research, and whoever takes over as CEO will probably bring his own.” She met his gaze squarely, her dark eyes fathomless and a little strained, despite her efforts to keep all expression from them. “There's also the fact that this would be a good opportunity to get rid of a bad security risk.”

Swift anger darkened his eyes. “You're not a bad security risk.”

“I leaked confidential information. I trusted the wrong person, so I'm obviously a terrible judge of character.”

“Damn it, I—” He interrupted himself, glaring at her from narrowed, brilliant eyes. “You aren't being fired,” he finally
continued in a clipped voice. “You're being transferred to Dallas, to Spencer-Nyle headquarters.”

Stunned anew, she opened her mouth to say something then closed it when nothing came to mind. Transferred! “I can't go to Dallas!”

“Of course you can. It would be foolish of you to refuse this opportunity. You won't be executive secretary to the CEO, of course, but there will be a substantial increase in salary. Spencer-Nyle is much larger than Bronson Alloys and pays its employees well.”

Panic edged into her eyes, her voice. “I won't work for you.”

“You wouldn't be working for me,” he snapped. “You'll be working for Spencer-Nyle.”

“In what capacity? Shoved into a closet sorting paper clips, so I can never get my hands on any valuable information?”

He leaned over the table, rage turning his eyes dark green. “If you say another word about being a security risk, I'll take you over my knee wherever we happen to be, even if it's the middle of the street—or in a restaurant.”

Claire sank back, warned by the look and the barely controlled ferocity in his face. How had she made the colossal mistake of thinking him civilized? He had the temperament of a rampaging savage.

“Now, if you're through with the sarcastic remarks, I'll give you your job description,” he said icily.

“I haven't said I'll take the job.”

“It would be foolish of you to turn it down. As you pointed out, your job at Bronson Alloys will no longer be there in a short while.” He named a figure that was half again as much as she was currently making. “Can you afford to turn down that much money?”

“There are other jobs in Houston. My entire family is here. If I moved to Dallas, I'd have no one.”

His jaw tightened, and his eyes went even darker. “You could visit on weekends,” he said.

Claire sipped at her tea, not looking at him. It
would
be foolish to turn down that much money, even though it meant moving to Dallas, but her instinct was to turn it down, anyway. If she relocated to Spencer-Nyle's headquarters she would be in Max's territory, seeing him every day, and he would have authority over her. It wasn't a decision she could make immediately, even though logic said she should jump at it.

“I'll have to think about it,” she said with the quiet stubbornness that her family had learned to recognize.

“Very well. You have until Monday.”

“That's just three days, counting today!”

“If you decide not to take the job, another person will have to be found,” he pointed out. “Your decision can't be very complicated—you have to relocate or join the unemployment lists. Until Monday.”

She saw no sign of relenting in his eyes, even though three days seemed like no time at all to her. Claire didn't hurry toward change; she liked to do things gradually, becoming used to changes by slow increments. She had lived all of her life in or near Houston, and to move to another city was like asking her to change her entire life. Things were difficult enough now without being lost in a totally new environment.

Max's prime rib was served, and he devoted himself to it for a few minutes while Claire nursed her tea and turned the idea of moving over and over in her mind. At last she pushed it away. She couldn't decide now, and she had other things she wanted to ask him.

“What did you tell Sam?”

He looked up. “Concerning what?”

“Last night. The fill-in secretary said that Sam told her I'd fainted and wouldn't be working today.”

“Embellishment on his part. When he asked me this morning what the hell I was doing following and harassing you last night, I told him to mind his own bloody damn business and that it was a good thing someone made certain you got home safely because you collapsed.”

“I didn't collapse.”

“Really? Do you remember when I undressed you?”

She looked away, her cheeks heating. “No.”

“I didn't cheat. I don't take advantage of unconscious women. When I make love to you again, you'll damned well be awake.”

She had noticed that the more irritated he was, the more crisp his accent became, and he was practically biting off his words now. “If I don't go to Dallas,” she whispered, getting up from the booth, “it will be because of you, because I can't stand being near you.” Then she walked off before he could say anything, fleeing back across the street to the relative safety of the office.

Max watched her go, his face stiff. He hadn't thought that she would reject the job offer, but now it seemed that she might, and he was afraid that if he lost track of her now he might lose her forever. Damn it, after all the strings he had pulled, she
had
to take the job!

Rome hadn't been pleased by the late phone call the night before. “Damn it, Max, this had better be good,” he'd growled. “Jed is cutting teeth and raising hell about it, and we'd just gone to sleep after getting him settled.”

“Kiss Sarah good-night for me,” Max had said, amused by Rome's grouchiness.

Rome told him where he could go and how he could get there, and in the background Max had heard Sarah's laughter. “This is important,” he'd finally said. “Is there a job opening in the office? Any job?”

They worked so well together that Rome hadn't wasted any
time asking unimportant questions, like for whom, and why. They trusted each other's instincts and plans. Rome had been silent for a moment, his steel-trap brain running through the possibilities. “Delgado in finance is being transferred to Honolulu.”

“Good God, what strings did he pull to get that?”

“He understands money.”

“All right, who's taking his place?”

“We've been talking about bringing Quinn Payton in from Seattle.”

Max had been silent in his turn. “Why not Jean Sloss in R and D? She has a degree in business finance, and she's done a damned good job. I think she's executive material.”

By that time Rome had seen a pattern in all this moving around. “Who do you suggest to replace Jean Sloss? I agree that she deserves a promotion, but she's good enough that replacing her won't be easy.”

“Why not Kali? She'd love to work in R and D, and it would be a chance for her to eventually move into a managerial position. She knows the company.”

“Damn it, she's
my
secretary!” Rome had roared. “Why don't you move your own secretary?”

Max had considered that, but didn't think Claire would take the job. On second thought, being Rome's secretary would be too close and make working difficult, too. “Forget Kali, then. Caulfield, the general office manager…what's his secretary's name? Her qualifications are good, and she's ambitious. Carolyn Watford, that's it.”

“I'm taking all this down. We're not in the habit of playing musical offices. Who takes Carolyn Watford's place?”

“Claire Westbrook.”

After a long pause of silence Rome had said, “I'll be damned,” and Max had known he didn't have to make any further explanations.

“I'll see what I can do. It won't be easy, moving this many people around on such short notice. When can I let you know?”

“Sometime before lunch tomorrow,” Max had said.

“Hell!” Rome had snorted, and hung up, but he had been on the phone before ten o'clock with the all-clear. Rome Matthews was a mover and a shaker; when he decided something would be done, it was better not to stand in his way, and Anson Edwards generally gave him a free hand.