Hidden Talents

Also by Jayne Ann Krentz

Absolutely, Postively

Deep Waters

Eye of the Beholder

Family Man

Flash

The Golden Chance

Grand Passion

Hidden Talents

Perfect Partners

Sharp Edges

Silver Linings

Sweet Fortune

Trust Me

Wildest Hearts

Written under the name Jayne Castle

Amaryllis

Orchid

Zinnia

Published by POCKET BOOKS

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

An
Original
Publication of POCKET BOOKS

POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

Copyright © 1993 by Jayne Ann Krentz

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
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ISBN: 0-7434-9640-X

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H
IDDEN
T
ALENTS

I
THINK YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT SOMEONE IS TRYING TO
blackmail me,” she said.

Her name was Serenity Makepeace, and until thirty seconds ago Caleb Ventress had been giving serious consideration to having an affair with her.

He had not mentioned the idea to Serenity because he had not yet finished assessing the situation. Never had he been more profoundly grateful for his natural inclination toward calm deliberation than he was at that particular moment.

Caleb never made a move without first thinking through all aspects of a problem. He applied the time-tested method to his personal as well as his business affairs. He knew better than anyone else that his habit of approaching everything with an unemotional, logical detachment was one of the chief factors responsible for his phenomenal financial success.

To date, his relationship with Serenity had been limited to a handful of meetings in his office, three working lunches, and two business dinners. He hadn't even kissed her. He'd planned to take that step tonight.

It had been a near thing, Caleb realized. A strange, cold feeling twisted through his gut as he acknowledged the close brush with disaster. What really bothered him was the uneasy feeling that Serenity Makepeace had the potential for making him ignore his own rules.

She was unlike any other woman he had ever known. She fascinated him. If he had lived in another time and place, an era during which people routinely believed in superstitious nonsense, for example, he would have wondered if she had put some kind of spell on him.

She sat there now, on the other side of his desk, ostensibly in his world, but somehow not quite of it. It was as if she had dropped into his reality from some alternate universe.

Serenity Makepeace had eyes the color of a peacock's tail, and a wild, fiery red mane that today was only partially controlled by a black ribbon tied at her nape.

There was a fey quality about her that stirred the hair on the back of Caleb's neck. The odd little griffin pendant she wore somehow accented her aura of otherworldliness. She possessed an ethereal air that almost convinced him that she had been meant to dance in moonlit meadows at midnight rather than conduct business negotiations in a high-rise office.

He sincerely hoped that she was better at dancing in the moonlight than she was at dealing with business matters. He'd had to guide her every step of the way through their recent contract discussions. The problem wasn't her lack of intelligence; she had a disconcertingly healthy amount of that quality. The difficulty was her lack of experience.

Serenity managed a tiny grocery store in a small mountain community called Witt's End. From what Caleb could discern, the store catered to an eccentric clientele of misfits and nonconformists, artsy-craftsy types and social dropouts. Serenity knew a lot about whole-grain bread, beans, and tofu, but she knew virtually nothing about sophisticated business practices.

That was where he came in, Caleb reminded himself. Serenity wanted to expand her small grocery into a mail order catalog operation. She needed a start-up consultant.

Caleb was one of the best start-up consultants in the Pacific Northwest; perhaps the best. He was very good at what he did.

The Witt's End by Mail project had been very different from Caleb's usual ventures. For one thing, he wasn't accustomed to working with people who were as unsophisticated about business as Serenity obviously was. His usual clients were high-powered corporate executives who sent their lawyers to work out the terms of the contracts. He rarely, if ever, consulted with small, independent businesses the size of Witt's End Grocery. The owners of such firms couldn't afford him. Serenity was no exception. She couldn't pay his usual fees, either.

The only reason Caleb had taken Serenity on as a client in the first place was because she had caught his attention and piqued his admittedly jaded professional interest. He had been bored with his own highly successful career and with life in general for longer than he cared to remember.

He recalled Serenity's initial letter of inquiry quite clearly. The scope of her plans had amused him.

On a whim, Caleb had invited Serenity for an interview. The day she had walked through the door three weeks ago, looking completely wrong in a conservative gray suit and matching one-inch heels, he knew he would be signing a contract with her.

He had taken Serenity by the hand, and she had followed his experienced lead with charming naiveté. If he'd really been trying to take advantage of her, he could have tied her up six ways from Sunday and she would never have had a clue. Instead, five minutes ago she had signed on the bottom line of what he considered a reasonably fair contract.

Of course, he had given himself a very large, very flexible escape clause, and left her with only one carefully controlled exit out of the deal; an exit that she would probably need a lawyer to find. Business was business, after all, and a contract was a contract. When it came to this part of his life, Caleb made it a habit to do things on his own terms or not at all.

His escape route was spelled out in section six of the contract. All he had to do was exercise it.

Caleb did not take his eyes off of Serenity as he absorbed the body blow she had just dealt him.

“What did you say?” he asked. There was virtually no chance that he had misunderstood her, but he had to make certain.

Serenity cleared her throat delicately. “I said someone is trying to blackmail me.”

A dark rage ignited somewhere deep inside Caleb. It had been so long since he had last felt such a powerful emotion that he almost failed to recognize the hot anger for what it was. For an instant it threatened to overwhelm him.

“Damn it to hell.” Caleb made no effort to tone down the savage edge that etched his words.

Serenity tilted her head to one side and studied him with a perplexed but very steady gaze. “Is something wrong?”

That was taking the element of charming naiveté a little too far, he thought in disgust. He wondered what he had ever seen in her. No one would have labeled her beautiful, he decided, making a desperate attempt to regain the cold, detached objectivity he had cultivated all of his life. Attractive, yes. Interesting, certainly. Amusing, even. But not beautiful.

Serenity's intelligent face was expressive and vivid. He had to admit that there was a natural elegance to her high cheekbones. He also conceded that there was something about her full mouth that made him think of sultry nights and damp, tangled sheets, even though this year October was proving to be cool and crisp in Seattle.

No, she was not beautiful, but he had been riveted by her from the first moment she had walked into his office. He had wanted her.

God help him, he still wanted her.

“Under the circumstances, that's a rather idiotic question, don't you think?” Caleb muttered.

“I'm sorry,” Serenity said politely. “I realize this has probably come as a surprise to you. It certainly has to me.”

Caleb spread his fingers flat across the gleaming surface of his glass-and-steel desk. “Why would anyone blackmail you, Miss Makepeace?”

“I'm not sure.” Her red brows drew together in a serious, considering expression. “It was the strangest thing. The pictures were addressed to me at my hotel this morning. There was a note with them that said copies would be sent to you if I didn't break off my business dealings with Ventress Ventures immediately.”

“Pictures?” Caleb's insides tightened.
Please, don't let it be what I think it's going to be
. “Of you?”

Serenity blushed but did not look away. “Yes.”

“With someone?” Caleb made himself ask very carefully. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe they were photos of her with a past lover. She was twenty-eight years old, he reminded himself. She was bound to have had a few affairs. He could handle that. He'd had a few of his own. Not many, but a few.

“No. The pictures are of me alone. They were taken about six months ago.”

Caleb set his back teeth. “What, exactly, are you doing in these photos?”

“Nothing much. I'm just sort of lying around in most of them.”

“Just sort of lying around.” Caleb picked up a pen and tapped it very, very gently against the glass desktop.
Ting, ting, ting
. The noise grated on his ears. “What makes the pictures suitable for blackmail purposes, Ms. Makepeace?”

“That's just the point. I don't think they are suitable for blackmail.” Her lovely mouth curved ruefully. “But someone apparently believes that they're potentially damning. At least in your eyes.”

“Why do you think someone might have that impression?”

Serenity shrugged with graceful nonchalance. The airy motion made her look even more out of place in the prim little gray suit. “I'm not exactly sure why anyone would think of them as blackmail material. I suppose it's because I'm not wearing much in any of them.”

“Just how much are you wearing in the pictures?”

She touched the little griffin that hung from the chain around her throat. It was obvious that the pendant had originally been finished with an imitation gold overlay. The cheap veneer had since worn off in several places, allowing the inexpensive metal underneath to show through on the wings of the beast. “Mostly I'm just wearing this.”

“Nude photos. Christ.” Caleb threw down the pen and got to his feet. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his expensively tailored trousers and paced to the window.

Was this what it had been like for his family all those years ago? he wondered. He brushed the fleeting thought aside. He knew very well that the old scandal had been a thousand times worse for his grandfather and the rest of the proud Ventress clan. After all, his father, Gordon Ventress, had been married when the photos of his mistress, Crystal Brooke, had been sent to Caleb's grandfather, Roland.

Crystal Brooke had been the stage name of the part-time model, would-be starlet, and full-time hustler who had gotten her bright red claws into the wealthy up-and-coming young politician from Ventress Valley, Washington.

Caleb had never known his mother Crystal, but he had been told a great deal about her during his youth. Her specialty had been nude spread shots for the sort of men's magazines that were not generally purchased because of the high quality of the articles.

When the evidence of his son's affair with Crystal Brooke had reached Roland Ventress, the ensuing explosion had rocked the conservative farm town of Ventress Valley. Toughened by years of ranching, a stint in the military, and a streak of gritty stubbornness that ran in the family, Roland had flatly refused to pay the blackmail demand.

The anonymous blackmailer had promptly sent the pictures to the
Ventress Valley News
. The editor of the town's only newspaper had been feuding with Roland Ventress at the time. He had gleefully printed a photo of Crystal that had been carefully cropped to make it suitable for a small-town paper. The accompanying editorial had fulminated against the declining morals and abysmal ethics of young Gordon Ventress. It had questioned his suitability for a seat in the state legislature.

The resulting scandal had ripped the family apart. Gordon's elegant, young wife, Patricia, raised in an old-money, East Coast family, had done her duty up to a point. She had bravely stood by her husband until word came that Crystal Brooke had a baby son. Gordon freely admitted to being the father.

The news that her husband had a child by his mistress proved to be too much for Patricia. Not even the sturdy notions of wifely fortitude and family loyalty that had been handed down to her by several generations of stalwart New England forebears could sustain her. She agreed to a divorce, the first in the history of the Ventress family.

After a stormy confrontation with Roland, Gordon had gone back to Los Angeles to be with Crystal. He vowed to marry her as soon as his divorce was final, but that weekend he and his mistress had both died in a fiery car crash.

The only survivor had been their three-month-old son, Caleb.

Roland Ventress had followed in the proud tradition of the Ventress family. He had done his duty by his unwanted heir. With the glaring exception of Caleb's father, the Ventresses always did their duty.

Roland went to Los Angeles to bury his only son and claim his grandson. He had grudgingly handled the arrangements for Crystal Brooke's burial also, simply because no one else had stepped forward to do it.

Roland had brought the infant Caleb home to Ventress Valley and informed his grieving wife, Mary, and the rest of the family, which consisted of his nephew Franklin and his niece Phyllis, that in spite of the scandal, the Ventresses would uphold their responsibilities to the boy. Caleb was, after all, Roland's only hope for the future.