Deceptive Love (20 page)

Keri cried. She couldn't help herself. Deep gasping sobs convulsed her and she gulped helplessly. Dain could feel her tears running down the side of his neck and onto his chest.

"Oh, honey, please don't cry. You tear me up inside when you do that," he pleaded softly, stroking the disheveled waves of her hair. He rocked her in his arms, murmuring soothing words. "Please, baby, please stop. You'll make yourself sick. I love you, Keri, honey. Please believe me."

Gradually Keri's sobs diminished to gasping hiccups and she snuffled wearily. "I don't have a handkerchief, honey. Sit here and I'll get you a washcloth," Dain said softly as he deposited her carefully on the couch. He came back moments later and began to wipe her tear-swollen face with a cold, damp washcloth. He also had brought a wad of tissues which he handed her. She blew her nose strongly and felt marginally better.

Dain took back the tissues and the washcloth, tossing them all on a counter in the kitchen. He came back into the living room, sat down by Keri, and put his arms around her, pulling her tightly against his side. She tried to stiffen, but he wouldn't allow it.

"All right, love," he said resignedly. "Let's get it over with, but before we start, I want you to remember this: I love you. I am going to marry you: Keep that in mind while we get over the heavy ground."

He looked savage again as he said, "I came in on the tail end of Denise's speech, where she offered you jewelry on my behalf. I can guess what came before, but maybe you'd better tell me what she said so that I don't miss any salient points."

Keri drew in a shudderingly deep breath and replied obediently in a toneless voice. "She said that you came home from Europe to take me away from Schyler so that he would marry her instead of me. She said that you made me your mistress for the same reason. She said that you always give her what she wants, but that this time you got a little something for yourself as well. The rest you heard."

Dain's voice hissed sharply between his teeth and the curse he muttered not very inaudibly should have shocked her profoundly, but she was too numb to care. "It's mostly my fault, darling," he admitted heavily. "My father and I let her become the spoiled and spiteful bitch she is. I am guilty of that. I am guilty of coming back to the States early because of her call, but only because I was worried about her. She was hysterical the night she called me and she's unstable at times. I thought I'd better come home to be on hand. My father's not well and he's in no shape to deal with her in one of her moods." Keri didn't think anyone was capable of dealing with Denise in one of her moods if they were anything like what she'd already seen this morning.

"I also admit that I took you away from Simonds because I wanted to see you up close," Dain continued. "Any woman who could lure one of Denise's men away was bound to be worth seeing! Imagine my surprise when Miss Prim walked through the door and stood before me, judging me for daring to disrupt her well-ordered routine." He shook his head slightly. "Well, for your information, my routine hasn't been worth a damn since I first set eyes on you. First you were a mystery I had to solve and then you were the woman I wanted for my wife, even when I thought you'd belonged to Schyler first."

Keri jerked indignantly in his arms but he easily quelled her rebellion. "He told me you were his mistress, Keri," Dain explained hurriedly. "When he was explaining why he wanted to break his engagement to Denise he said definitely that you had been his mistress, that you'd quarreled and afterward you had left Van Metre's for parts unknown. He also said that now that he'd found you again, he wanted to marry you as he should have done before."

Dain continued. "The first night I called you at your home, before the conference, he was at your apartment. I heard you speaking to him. And then, when I came to pick you up before the reception, he called you on the phone. I had no reason to doubt what he'd said, Keri, but it didn't matter, or rather," he said with painful honesty, "it mattered, but I loved you too much to let you go. I'm not lily white myself'—here Keri choked slightly—"and I told myself that I had no right to expect more of you than I could offer." For the first time he forced her to look at him directly. "We start fresh from last night, darling. There's been no one since I met you. There'll be no one else for either of us from now on."

She didn't say anything—she couldn't. When the silence had stretched painfully long he ordered desperately, "Talk to me, Keri. Believe me!"

Keri didn't answer him directly. "I left Van Metre's because of Schyler," she told him quietly. "He hounded me at work and at home. He wouldn't take no for an answer, so I went to my aunt's for a while. Then I got Charles to arrange the job at RanCo so I wouldn't have to ask Van Metre's for a reference. I was afraid it would enable Schyler to track me down again. Then he saw me at RanCo. He started coming around and calling, just like before. I couldn't get him to believe that I didn't love him, wouldn't marry him. He just kept on and on. I didn't want him!" Her voice took on a perilous wobble.

Dain folded her tightly to himself and said bitterly, "If I'd known what a nuisance he's been making of himself, I'd have broken him into little pieces instead of just decking him."

Keri still hadn't commented on his recital, but she wasn't fighting his hold anymore. He had one more thing to say to her and then he would rest his case. "As for Denise and her aspirations, in the future she can fight her own battles, my darling. I fight only yours. I wanted you for myself and that's why I pursued you so relentlessly. Not for any other reason."

He waited calmly for her judgment. It wasn't long in coming.

"You once asked me for time, time in which to learn to trust you. I gave you that time, Dain. I learned to trust you. I still trust you. I love you too. Keri entwined her arms around his neck and lifted her mouth for his kiss.

His mouth swooped down on hers in a kiss of total possession. As he carried her back into the bedroom they had so recently vacated, he said huskily, "If your parents can't get back here within the next few days, Charles can give you away. You're not going back to that apartment either, except to pick up some clothes, and I defy the phone to ring while we're there."

"Yes, Mr. Randolph," she said submissively as he spread open the robe which was her only covering. His hands covered her breasts as she drew his head down to hers.

Keri didn't go back to her apartment, except to pick up some of her clothes, and Dain didn't go to work. Long distance phone calls established that Keri's parents couldn't be at the wedding if it were to be held in less than two weeks' time. Charles was pressed into service to give the bride away. Mary cried at the wedding, standing in, she tearfully announced, for the mother of the bride, who would have wept for joy had she been present. Dain's father attended and was patently pleased with the new addition to the family. Denise was not present. Keri didn't ask whether she had been invited.

Mrs. Babcock had duly tendered her congratulations, laid the table for the wedding dinner a deux, iced the champagne, and left. Dain said whimsically, "Dare I say
,
'
Alone at last'?"

Keri chuckled. "You might dare. I certainly wouldn't. We've been alone, mostly, for the past three days. Are you sure we need a honeymoon?" She blushed violently as he whispered in her ear exactly why they needed a honeymoon.

He grinned odiously and kissed her hot cheek. "I didn't realize that you could still do that."

"Of course I can"—she glared at him—"if you say things like that to me!" A mischievous smile curled over her mouth. "Can we really do something like that? Marriage is going to be a lot more interesting than I had thought!"

Dain shouted with laughter.

Keri sobered suddenly. She leaned back against him and his hands came up to clasp loosely around her waist. She tilted her head sideways and looked up at him, her eyes serious and troubled. She really didn't want to talk about it, but she had to know.

"Darling," she began uncertainly, "what about Denise and Schyler?" She felt him stiffen and his hands tightened at her waist. She laid her own hands over his and hurried on. "Is she pregnant? And if she is, what are they going to do about it?"

He didn't answer her at once. She could feel the reluctance to discuss it in every hard line of his lithe body. He still hadn't forgiven Denise for her attack on Keri, but Keri knew that eventually he must. Denise was his sister and he felt responsible for her. If she were in trouble, they would have to be ready to help her as best they could.

Keri hadn't forgiven Denise either yet, but she had been responsible for bringing Keri and Dain together. Had it not been for Denise's machinations, Keri might still have been anonymously ensconced in Mr. Simonds's office. Keri was much happier where she was now, held closely against Dain's strong body. So she persisted.

"What are they going to do?" she repeated.

"She's pregnant," Dain answered heavily. "I talked to Schyler while you were at the beauty parlor this morning. He'll marry her, because his father wants an heir and because Schyler has no hope of getting you. It's a hell of a basis for a marriage, but at least the child will have a legal father. More than that can't be said for it."

His hands slid up from her waist to cup her breasts. He didn't want to talk or think about Denise and Schyler anymore!

"Don't you want some of Mrs. Babcock's dinner? She worked very hard." Keri was slightly breathless. Dain's hand had slipped inside of her dress and bra and was tracing circles around a nipple, rubbing lightly and tantalizingly.

"No." 

"Do you want any . . . ohh . . . champagne?"

His other hand was undoing the buttons down the front of her dress. "No."

The dress slid off her shoulders and dropped in a pool "of frothy white at her feet. Dain unsnapped the catch of her bra and it followed her dress to the floor. He had finally mastered the intricacy of the slide fastening.

"No champagne?" she whispered as he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom.

'I’ll drink it from your navel. Later." His mouth closed firmly over hers, silencing her questions. His hands were busy. He had learned how to take off clothes very quickly in the past three days. Sometimes he wondered why they'd been invented.

When his mouth left hers and went wandering lower, Keri discovered that she really didn't have any more questions to ask him. He was answering them all very comprehensively, in the most direct way possible.

He moved above her and she reached up to him eagerly. A very satisfactory basis for a marriage indeed.