Deceptive Love (9 page)

True to her word, she reached the Lawsons' comfortable home in McLean, Virginia, by lunchtime. Charles
_v
with exquisite diplomatic tact, didn't mention Schyler or RanCo at all as they ate their way through delicious tostadas. Mary had become addicted to Mexican cookery while she and Charles were with a diplomatic mission in Mexico City, and thereafter Mexican cuisine was featured regularly in her menus to the delight of her family and friends.

Keri helped with the dishes, grabbed a paperback she had started the previous weekend, and headed for the poolside. She pulled a lounger around to take maximum advantage of the sun, slathered herself with lotion, and dropped down gratefully onto the padded comfort of the sunwarmed canvas. There was a slight breeze to temper the heat of the sun and she read for a while in sybaritic comfort. Contented and relaxed as a cat, she surrendered to the soporific warmth of the afternoon as it dragged down her eyelids. The book fell unheeded to the ground and she dozed.

When she woke she was sticky with sweat and slightly heavy headed. The cool invitation of the pool seemed the ideal solution for both problems, and she ran lightly to the side, arcing into a racing dive without breaking stride. As she started her dive she caught a glimpse of two male figures approaching from around the side of the house. With the outline of their figures imprinted in her mind, she sliced cleanly into the water, breaking the smooth surface of the pool. She emerged, hair dripping in water-laden strands around her face, and turned to face the men. One was Charles. She sank slowly beneath the water again, trailing her floating, water-darkened hair behind her in a fan. The other was Dain Randolph.

Keri swam underwater toward the opposite end of the pool, surfacing under the diving board. She wondered, if she swam enough laps underwater, whether he'd give up and go away. Resignedly she decided he wouldn't. She submerged again and swam slowly back to the shallow end of the pool.

When she surfaced in the thigh-deep water Charles had gone back into the house and Dain stood by the steps, a towel waiting in his hand. Keri dipped back into the water to sleek her hair away from her eyes, wiped away the water drops caught in her eyelashes, and mounted the steps. He politely handed her the towel, which she draped casually around her shoulders after she had used it to mop her face.

Keri walked over to the lounger she had napped on so comfortably earlier and sat down. Her knees were tremulous and she quailed at the thin-lipped anger that pulled Dain's mouth. He looked very vital in the narrow-legged denims and pale green sport shirt which strained against the packed muscles of his legs and chest. In other circumstances she might have been pleasurably attracted by so much man. Just now though she wished him spindle-shanked and chicken-chested and anywhere but pushing her legs aside on the lounger so that he could sit down by her knees.

"Mr. Randolph," Keri said, with as cool an intonation as she could contrive, which frankly wasn't much, "this is a surprise." An eyebrow lifted in sardonic amusement at this massive piece of understatement, but lowered again when she unwisely continued, "Just passing by?"

Keri regretted this defensive bit of impudence as soon as it left her mouth, but it is hard to be coolly formal when dressed in a minuscule turquoise bikini and unexpectedly confronted by the devil on the doorstep, so to speak. With just a look he managed to make her feel gauche and vulnerable and it was all she could do not to huddle beneath the inadequate towel to hide herself from his stripping gaze.

He didn't speak and Keri fidgeted uneasily. Finally she could stand it no longer and once again blurted into unwise speech, "Did you come to fire me?"

"Do you think I should?" he countered easily, his face now an inscrutable mask, green eyes hooded against the glare of the afternoon sun.

Devil take the man
, Keri thought in exasperation.
Just what do I answer to that? If I say yes, he just might take me at my word. If I say no, I give him the perfect opening.
She thought frantically and then temporized. "I would say that's up to you, sir," and reached down beside the lounger for her sunglasses, intending to put them on and hide behind their reflective blankness.

"Oh no you don't, Keri," he said as his hand snaked out
to encircle her wrist. "I've developed a distinct aversion to seeing you in glasses of any sort!" With his free hand he plucked the offending glasses from her fingers and placed them in the grass beneath the end of the lounge chair, safe but inaccessible to her.

Then, so suddenly that she started in amazement, his whole manner changed. He smiled at her with great charm and said quietly, "Shall we start over, Keri? I'll apologize for last night if you'll apologize for sneaking out after the reception. I could happily have wrung your neck, you know." Then he admitted casually, "You were probably very smart not to open the door or answer your phone until I had time to calm down."

Keri didn't answer his question directly at first. "How did you know I was with Charles and Mary for the weekend?" she asked bluntly.

"I called and asked to speak to you. Charles said you were dozing out by the pool, but that he'd go and get you. I told him not to wake you, that I'd contact you later, and so I have." He grinned at her.

It was hard not to answer his grin with her own, but she persevered. "But why did you think I might be here in the first place? I mean, I could just as easily have still been incommunicado at my apartment."

"I went by there," he said simply. "Your car was gone from its parking place and besides, you're not the type to stay holed up between four walls on a day like this. As to why the Lawsons... just luck. I knew of your relationship and took the chance that you might have come to them. Your mistake was in not telling them that you were hiding out from your boss."

"I wasn't hiding out!" she said indignantly.

He laughed at the absurdity of that assertion and Keri could no longer hold out against the deliberately exerted charm. "And anyway, they don't know you're my boss yet. I hadn't told them
that ..."

"That I've pirated you away from Simonds?" he finished the sentence smoothly.

"Well, I was going to say transferred, but if you feel pirated fits better, I'll let you choose your own words." She smiled slightly at him in demure mischief, her green eyes glinting like bright glass from between the thick lashes.

"Pax, Keri?"

"Well, truce, Mr. Randolph," Keri assented cautiously. She still didn't trust him, but they had to establish some sort of ease between them if she were to continue at RanCo. She didn't deceive herself that he'd let her go back to work for Mr. Simonds. It was Dain Randolph or nothing. His manner made that clear.

"We're not in the office now, Keri. My name is Dain." He smiled when he said it, but it didn't lessen the authority behind the order.

Keri sighed. The truce was going to be of short duration. "Do your other secretaries call you Dain outside of the office?" She questioned him, avoiding using either Dain or Mr. Randolph.

"I don't see my other secretaries except in a business situation, Keri."

"Not even Miss Barth?" Keri couldn't resist.

"Especially not Miss Barth," he responded dryly. "Give me credit for a sense of self-preservation. I don't mix business with pleasure."

"Ah-ha!" Keri was triumphant. "Neither do I, Mr. Randolph."

"Very neat," he admitted, "but may I remind you that there are exceptions to the rule?"

"I know," Keri said bitterly, thinking of Schyler. "It's the exceptions that make me determined to stick to the rule from now on, Mr. Randolph."

"Which means that you won't let me take you out to dinner tonight." He said it as a statement, but there was a smile in his voice, as though something amused him. When she shook her head, he took her refusal calmly, merely saying, "What a shame. I had a particular craving for lobster tonight and there's an excellent seafood restaurant quite near here."

She looked up at him suspiciously, for he had risen as he spoke, but his face showed only polite regret. She started to rise as well, but he lightly touched her shoulder for a moment, arresting her motion. He broke the contact so that there was not the slightest presumption of intimacy, but she could feel that warm hand imprinted on her flesh long after he had gone.

"Don't get up, Keri. I'll manage to find my own way out. Enjoy your weekend."

He walked back to the house and she stared after him until he disappeared. She could have sworn he was laughing to himself.

She dived back into the pool and began to swim laps. A most disturbing episode. He was subtler than Schyler, but she didn't make the mistake of thinking him any the less determined. Unfortunately for her peace of mind, she also found Dain infinitely more attractive than she did Schyler!

She flipped over and floated on her back, considering the situation soberly. Superficially Dain and Schyler had much in common. Both were rich, experienced, and attractive. Inwardly she sensed a depth and strength of character in Dain that Schyler would never have. Both men might thus far have avoided lasting commitment to one woman, but in Dain there existed a capacity for deep, enduring emotion, even though it might never be utilized. Schyler had no such depths.

Keri's peril, as she saw it, would be the temptation to believe that she was the woman who could plumb those depths she sensed in Dain's character. As she turned over to finish the last lap and pulled herself up onto the edge of the pool she admitted too that she might come to believe it because she wanted to so badly. In spite of her common sense, in spite of Mrs, Covey's explicit details about Dain's previous women ... she, Keri Dalton, idiot par excellence, would like very much to be that one woman. From the moment she had met those green eyes the first time in his office, something unexpected within herself had been unfolding and growing, and she was just now having to recognize and admit its existence. She wouldn't put a name to it yet, but neither could she deny its presence.

She wasn't ready to proffer explanations, so she avoided both Charles and Mary by going to her room to shower and shampoo the chlorine out of her hair. She dallied until the afternoon was well advanced and then, able to put it off no longer, went in search of her hosts. There were voices coming from the living room and she heard delighted laughter from Mary. She tracked the sound.

When she walked into the living room she knew why Dain had been laughing as he walked away from her. He sat at ease on the white couch, a long cool drink in his left hand, gesturing to illustrate a point with his right, while i Mary sat beaming benignly at him from her favorite chair. Charles stood in his usual pose, back to the empty fireplace, arm cocked on the broad stone mantel, sipping occasionally from his own drink.

Dain rose as she entered the room and the look he shot her was as mischievous as any small boy's. "Charles and Mary like lobster too, Keri," he said significantly and couldn't have looked more pleased with himself if he'd turned into a pillar of smug.

Keri looked interrogatively at Mary, who smiled guilelessly back at her and said happily, "Dain says he knows of a good restaurant near here that specializes in fresh lobster and he's invited us all to have dinner with him. Isn't that nice of him, dear? You know how I enjoy lobster, and it's quite Charles's favorite food."

Keri looked over at Dain. His eyes danced with unholy glee and invited her to laugh with him at the ease with which he had circumvented her. A reckless streak surfaced (it had gotten her into trouble before) and she succumbed to temptation. She laughed. It was the husky chuckle of a clear brook over water-smooth rocks, innocent and sparkling, bubbling with joy. Something flamed deeply in Dain's eyes before he drooped his lids to shield what could be read there.

Mary regarded Keri with some confusion and Charles questioned dryly, "Is this a private joke or may anyone join in?" It had been far too long since he had heard Keri laugh with all her old zest and he was most curious to discover just what triggered that enchanting gurgle of mirth.

"I've been neatly outmaneuvered, Charles," Keri admitted, laughter still lilting in her voice. "Meet my boss, Dain Randolph. He pirated"—she grinned with an urchin's cheeky impudence at Dain,—"me away from my cozy Mr. Simonds and pried me out of my depressive disguise. Now he's managed to vanquish my resolutions about not mixing my business life with pleasure, for tonight, at least."

"Hostilities to recommence on Monday, Keri?" Dain drawled in amusement.

"What's wrong with Sunday?" she shot back, eyes sparkling.

"Sunday is a day of rest," he intoned pontifically, sending Keri off into another gust of mirth. Dain grinned back and suddenly there was a flashing sense of conspiracy, as though the two of them shared a joke no one else could understand. Days later Keri was to realize that the joke, if one could call it that, was on her, but by then it was far, far too late.

Dain exerted himself to please, and he did it well, Keri had to admit grudgingly. He didn't display the practiced charm of Schyler, which had always rung slightly forced and shopworn to her critical ear. Dain simply set his guests at ease, smoothing away the tension and wary regard that emanated from the guest who sat beside him in the booth, facing Charles and Mary.

He kept a proper distance from her, not taking advantage of the fact that she was captive between him and the wall, but even while talking to the opposite couple she was all too conscious of his proximity. By turning her head fractionally she could observe the hard outline of his profile and the determined thrust of his jaw. He was a man accustomed to decision-making, who would be ruthless if he saw the need. She judged he could be a good friend and a very bad enemy, but she doubted that he had any women who were merely friends. Platonic relationships, from what Mrs. Covey had told her and what she deduced herself from his experienced eyes and sensually firm mouth, would have little interest for him.