Deceptive Love (2 page)

Some day she might wish to travel again, in which event she would easily find a post abroad . . . her qualifications would see to that... but for now she wanted a permanent home. That had been one of the more distressing aspects of Schyler's relentless pursuit.

She had left her previous job, and had been lured to Van Metre and Company by an exorbitant salary offer from Van Metre, Sr., because of her extraordinary qualifications. She quickly became indispensable to Carleton Van Metre, who was a bit of a snob, but overall a good boss. He also appreciated the fact that his secretary combined a cool intelligence with a stunningly lovely appearance. He
did not
enjoy the fact that his son had begun a determined effort to seduce his new secretary from the moment he laid eyes upon her.

Keri didn't enjoy the fact either! Schyler had interfered with her work, hounded her at home, and generally made a miserable nuisance of himself. He was superficially handsome, but Keri quickly found him to be weak and self-indulgent as well. He was not a man she could either trust or respect—a death knell for any hopes he might have cherished of arousing her deeper interest and emotions. As the daughter of an officer whose assignments had taken him to embassy posts all over the world, she
was well inoculated against the sophisticated charm which said so much and meant so little.

She had made the intitial error, she admitted to herself wryly, in accepting dates with him on a casual basis, but he had quickly made it clear that he wished to move from the casual to the intimate with all possible speed. She refused to go out with him anymore, but he developed the disconcerting habit of appearing at her front door with no warning, or perching on her desk while she was trying to transcribe dictation from his father. Another woman might have found it flattering but Keri found it just tiresome and then actively distressing. Schyler could not, would never, be her choice of mate, and she was not a girl for a casual fling, no matter how glittering the opportunity.

She remonstrated, she fumed, she ignored. The climax came when he asked her to marry him, which she refused to do. He was astounded, disbelieving. No girl in her right mind would turn down Schyler Van Metre of
the
Van Metres. He had been pursued by women since puberty, for himself and for what he had, and he'd gotten everything he wanted from them all. Now, when he wanted marriage, it was simply inconceivable that she deny him!

It was inconceivable to his father as well. She was only a secretary! How could she deny a Van Metre when he condescended to honor her? This attitude caused Keri to mutter, sotto voice, that the days of
droit de seigneur
were long since dead, a sentiment she didn't utter aloud at first because she still hoped to stay at her job. Schyler's father saw her as an asset—a beautiful brood mare, a gracious hostess, and a serf properly appreciative of the honor done
her. Keri endured
.
Some weeks of mental bludgeoning,
gave her notice, trained her successor in stony silence, and
left.

Her action freed her from Van Metre, Sr., but Schyler was made of more persistent fiber. He phoned, he appeared, he dogged her footsteps. He promised that he would continue to do so until she gave in out of sheer exhaustion. Keri was unwillingly forced to believe him. The Schyler she knew through gossip and observation was not this determined, obsessed man.

Keri closed her apartment, called her father's sister to warn her of an impending visitor, and left town. She had plenty of savings, and when she sought another job, it wouldn't be in New York, where she was likely to run across
the
Van Metres again, any of them!

After several months of enjoyable idleness at her aunt's beachside cottage, Keri decided it was time to go back to work. She was determined to leave no ties with the Van Metres unsevered, so, for the first time in her life, she used the friendship and influence of her godfather for her benefit. She explained the situation to him and emphasized the reason for her unwillingness to obtain a reference from her former employer. If Schyler knew she had contacted his father for a reference, he might seek and
find
her again.

Her godfather understood "all too well," he advised her with a twinkle in his eyes. "You've been beating them off with a stick from your crib days, Keri."

"Well, I won't have to at work anymore," she retorted tartly. "I have a
plan"

She told him of her proposed transformation and he chuckled deeply. "Some smart man is going to see through to the real you without half trying, my dear. You can't hide that redheaded light under a bushel indefinitely."

"Charles! My hair is not re
d
," she remonstrated, carrying on a familiar, teasing argument between them. "Anyway," she pointed out, "it will make the job interview much easier. No one believes I can do what I say I can. It's time to look the part."

"Did you have problems at your previous jobs, before Van Metre, I mean?" he asked her curiously.

"To a certain extent," she admitted a bit unwillingly.

"Not to the degree of nuisance value that Schyler has managed to attain, but annoying all the same. The old jokes about bosses chasing their secretaries around the desk don't sound so funny when you have your track shoes on. From now on I'm going to keep my private life strictly private.
Absolutely
no dates with anyone I work with, or for! Charles, I want a boss who's happily married and at least fifty, and he has to be someone who will take me on

Van Metre and Company. I don't expect the same level of salary that I got from Van Metre . . . that would be hard to match . . . but I don't mind working the same field."

"A vice-president or better, eh?" he smiled. "Fortunately, just the man springs to mind. His secretary of fifteen years recently surprised everyone by marrying a widower with four small children, and he's desperate. You'll be a thirty years ago."

"Made to order. Bless you, Charles." Keri dropped a kiss on his bald spot. "I really kno
w how to pick godfathers," she
finished smugly. He laughed.

So she had come to work for George Simonds and found him exactly tailored to her needs. She had had that moment of panic when she passed Schyler in the hall, but it
had been nearly a week ago and if he'd recognised her, she would certainly have found him on her doorstep before now.

All of these reflections faded from Ken's mind as the traffic jam she was trapped in finally began to break up. She gunned the Porsche through an opening which left several other drivers muttering about "women drivers" even while admiring the cool expertise which had freed her, like a cork popping out of a bottle, from the snaking line of cars.

She parked the car in its assigned bay in the under-ground garage attached to her apartment building. Then while the elevator carried her swiftly to her floor, she freed her shoulder-length hair from its cruelly tight confinement. She shook her head to loose and fluff her hair until it swirled in comfortable disorder around her face. She shed her suit jacket, unbuttoned the first two buttons of her drab tan blouse, and stretched. She felt like a snake that had just shed a too-tight skin; for a weekend at least, she reminded herself.

She stepped out of the elevator when it reached her floor and stopped dead in shock.

"Hello, Miss Prim. Long time no see." The lounging man raked an appraising eye up and down her length and smiled slightly. "I'm glad to see that the transformation is only skin deep and not meant to be permanent."

"Schyler!" she gasped. "How ... how did you find me? What are you doing here?
Oh, go away!"
It was practically

"Did you think I wouldn't recognize you, Keri?" Schyler asked with simulated surprise. "I know every line of that lovely body of yours and I'd recognize you draped in a grain sack with a paper bag over your head. You'd do
well to change your walk as well, my dear, when you try to disguise yourself," he advised helpfully. "Any man with a normal hormone level could spot you by your walk alone, not to mention those lovely legs."

She looked at him with dislike. He was still the same cocksure gallant, convinced no woman could resist him in the end. Was it all to start again? Well, this time she would not run. He had no hold, no lever to use. She put her key into the door of her apartment, opened it, and stepped inside. She started to close the door, but Schyler put his foot in the way. Keri glanced down at the shining shoe firmly planted over her threshold and then back up to his face, her own face expressionless, patient.

"Aren't you going to ask me in, Keri darling?" he smiled engagingly.

"No," she stated positively. "We have nothing to say to each other, Schyler. I won't marry you. I won't have an affair with you, and I won't go out with you." She tried to close the door again.

"Comprehensive.'' He seemed unmoved by her vehemence. "Let me in, Keri, just for a drink. I promise I'll go when you tell me, but I'd like to talk to you. I haven't seen you for six months." He grinned with wheedling good humor. "I don't count that little meeting in the halls of RanCo. That wasn't the real you. I nearly burst out laughing, you know, when you passed by us. Lord, what a sight! Halloween came early this year."

In spite of her annoyance, Keri couldn't resist a small grin. He had a slick charm when he chose to use it. "But very effective," she assured him. "I haven't had any distractions while I'm trying to get my work done. It makes for a most restful atmosphere. I wish I'd thought of it sooner."

His foot hadn
't
retreated
an inch. She
sighed resignedly and gave in with marked lack of enthusiasm, saying ungraciously, "All right, Schyler. Come in. Just one drink though, and then out you go. I have a date for dinner and a party."

He scowled. "I told you any man could see through that ridiculous masquerade. Who is he?"

He trailed her into the living room as he spoke and she glared back over her shoulder at him. "None of your business, Schyler," she emphasized tightly. "I'll tell you this, though. He
doesn’
t
have any connection with RanCo. I'll never again make the mistake of going out with someone I work with or for. You cured me of that quite thoroughly and lost me an excellent job in the process. Now I keep my business and personal lives entirely separate and it works very nicely, thank you."

She tossed the suit jacket and her purse onto a nearby armchair and walked into a small kitchen, hidden behind slatted wooden doors. He heard ice cubes clink into a glass, followed almost immediately by the gurgle of a liquid. She came back into the living room and thrust a glass at him. "Scotch."

"You
remembered, darling. A sign of
affection
at last."
He was
still standing in the middle of her living room and he looked around with interest. "Very nice. May I sit, Keri, or must I gulp my scotch down while you stand
glaring
at
me?"

Once again that whimsical note disarmed her and she gestured, exasperated, toward the dark-blue tweed couch. He promptly sat in the middle of the couch and patted the cushion beside him invitingly.

She snorted and shook her head emphatically. "No, Schyler. No, no, and no again! Isn't that word in your vocabulary at all? Go find yourself another girl and leave me to get on with my life in my own way."

"There are plenty of girls, women too, for that matter," he admitted. "They're easy to find." His mouth had an odd twist to it "I know that all too well, Keri, my love, but there's only one Keri Dalton of the glorious hair and green eyes. I thought I could be content with less, but now that I've found you once more, I know I won't let you go again."

It was only with the greatest exercise of will that Keri kept from pounding her head against the nearest wall. "What does it take to convince you, Schyler? I
don't
love you, I
don't
want to marry you! I can't make it any plainer than that."

"Are you in love with someone else, Keri? Tell me honestly that you are and I might believe you." He watched her closely.

She tried to evade his questions. "What difference does it make, if I'm not in love with
you?
Schyler, please believe me, there's no future in this . . . this pursuit."

"If you don't love someone else, you might as well love me," he said outrageously. "I'm young, not bad looking, rich, and I've been told I make love rather nicely. Take me on approval, Keri. I wear well."

"Incorrigible, impossible, and insane. Finish your drink, Schyler, and go away. I want to get ready for my date." When he showed no immediate signs of leaving, she reminded him, "You promised you'd go when I told you to."

To her unexpressed but pleased surprise he rose obediently and prepared to leave. She hadn't decided on a course of action should he refuse, except perhaps to call David. David lived in an apartment two floors above her.

They had met several months ago at the elevator, she going to the laundry area and he coming from it, balancing an untidy pile of freshly dried clothes. He promptly followed her, to make conversation and fold his clothes while hers washed and dried.