Summer Mahogany (13 page)

The cab driver kept up a steady flow of chatter all the way to Rhyder's apartment building. She wished for silence to consider her legal strategy for the approaching meeting with Rhyder, but her monosyllabic responses didn't discourage him. Usually she was able to block out unwanted sounds, but this time she wasn't able to concentrate.

Chapter Seven

THE DRIVE DIDN'T TAKE as long as Gina had expected. At twenty minutes past seven she knocked on Rhyder's door. When it opened, her senses leaped, reacting to the vibrantly male figure standing before her.

The vivid green pattern of his silk shirt made Rhyder's eyes appear even more blue. Darker green trousers were tailored to loosely mold his hips and muscular thighs.

"The others haven't arrived yet, have they?" There was a nervous catch to her voice as she tried to sound professional and poised.

"No." He opened the door wide. "Come in." His gaze raked her length, a remoteness in his look. Motioning toward the living room behind him, he said, "Make yourself comfortable."

Impossible, Gina thought as she acknowledged his invitation with a stiff smile. The room was decorated in complementing beige and peach tones with a russet shade for contrast. Highly impractical but definitely luxurious, she decided. She wondered about the view from the window, but the drapes were closed against the western sun.

"I'm having a drink. Would you like one?" Rhyder inquired with distant politeness.

"A glass of white wine if you have it," Gina accepted, sitting down on a plush beige sofa and placing her briefcase on the adjoining sofa cushion.

The palms of her hands were damp with nervous perspiration. She wished Pete or Justin would arrive. The apartment walls seemed to echo the knowledge that she was alone with Rhyder. An office meeting would have been infinitely preferable to this informal situation. It brought the business relationship to a more casual level.

Her nerves tensed as Rhyder approached. He didn't hand her the wine goblet, but set it on the end table nearest her instead. Gina was aware that by doing so he had avoided accidentally touching her.

When he sat down in an armchair near the sofa, she knew she was incapable of small talk, especially when she noticed the brandy glass he held in his hands. Instantly her mind flashed back to the night of their wedding. She turned to the briefcase beside her and snapped it open.

"We might as well start—"

"Save it for later." His low voice cut across her sentence, faintly harsh but controlled.

Gina hesitated for a split second, then closed the case. Reaching for her wineglass, she leaned against the sofa back, trying to appear relaxed. There was a slight tremor in her hand as it carried the glass to her lips. She sipped the dry Chablis quickly and held the glass in both hands. Her nerves vibrated under the watchfulness of Rhyder's gaze.

"I've heard some glowing reports about you from your fellow members of the bar. You seem to have made remarkable progress in the short time since you passed your exams." He absently swirled the brandy in his glass, his compelling eyes not leaving her.

"Thank you. I've been fortunate," she didn't want him to compliment her, if that was what he was doing.

"The fact that you're beautiful brought you more quickly to the attention of the male members of your profession, no doubt, and aided the swift recognition that you were intelligent, as well." There was a hint of cynicism in the twisting mouth. Before Gina could decide if he was being offensive, Rhyder continued, shifting his attention to the amber brown liquid in his glass. "With your background, I would have thought you'd follow in your father's footsteps, specializing in marine law instead of real estate and land contracts."

"I seemed to have a natural aptitude for this field and chose it," was her only explanation.

Rhyder drank a swallow of brandy and gave her a considering look. "You mentioned at the clambake that your grandfather was dead. Has it been long?"

His bland questions expressed a polite interest in her, yet Gina felt agitated by them. Courtesy demanded that she answer them. She had to either keep up her part in this tension-charged truce or begin the quarrel that would destroy it.

"Eight years." Giving in to the restless stirrings caused by unwelcome memories, she rose from the sofa and wandered to the fireplace, a combination of rust- and sand-colored stone.

Rhyder didn't make any gesture of sympathy, probably remembering her rejection of his previous attempt at the clambake. "What did you do afterward?"

"I sold the house and went to college." It was several seconds before Gina realized she had condensed eight years of living into a few short sentences.

Drinking the last of her wine, she held on to the empty glass. It gave her hands something to do. She glanced covertly at her wristwatch, wondering when Justin and Pete would arrive. Soon, she hoped. The atmosphere was beginning to be stilted.

"More wine?" Rhyder offered, rising from the armchair to walk to the bar to refill his own glass.

"No, thank you," she refused.

"How long have you known Justin?" Something in the cobalt darkness of his look across the room made Gina uneasy. The question did not sound as politely indifferent as the others. Warily she hesitated.

"I met him shortly after I came to Portland to work for my present firm," she answered finally. "I've represented Justin in several land transactions similar to this one."

His mouth twisted cynically as he lifted the brandy glass to within inches of it. "'Do you mean it's a business relationship you have with him?" he asked over the rim of his glass.

Her tongue quivered with the urge to tell him it was none of his business, but if she held her temper a little longer, Justin or Pete would come and the conversation would leave these personal topics.

"I do see Justin socially," she admitted. Rhyder had to have known that. Justin had made it fairly obvious at the clambake.

"Often?" He moved leisurely to where she stood in front of the fireplace.

Her chin lifted to a defiant angle, letting him know he had no right to question her, but she answered him anyway, coolly, concealing her anger.

"I suppose several times a week could be considered often."

He held her gaze. "Do you sleep with him?"

The tight rein on her temper snapped, it unleashed her hand in a swinging arc, her opened palm stinging numbly against his hard cheek. When her green eyes focused on the slowly reddening white mark near his jawline, she realized what she had done. She took a quick step backward, expecting the swift retaliation she remembered so well.

Rhyder didn't move. He was a statue, carved in hardwood, not blinking an eye, yet intimidating Gina until her heart raced in panic.

"Does that mean yes or no?" he asked levelly.

"That means it's none of your business!" she retorted, breathing rapidly.

"It is my business." Rhyder drained the brandy glass and set it on the mantelpiece. "Don't forget, Gina, that I know you, too, and your methods."

More than ever before, Gina didn't trust him. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked guardedly.

"It means I'm wondering how far you'll go in forcing me to agree to Justin's terms," Rhyder explained, his expression hardening in contempt.

"Forcing you?" Bewilderedly Gina shook her dark head, caution in her frown. "The terms are to be negotiated."

"Will blackmail be part of the negotiations?" His sardonic query chilled her to the bone.

"Blackmail?" The word was repeated unknowingly.

"Don't pretend you haven't heard of the word," he mocked her savagely. "You've used it before." Gina paled. "But it can be dangerous," Rhyder continued. "I don't think you'd risk it unless you were deeply involved with Justin."

"Blackmail?" Gina repeated, angrily this time. "How on earth could I blackmail you?"

"That innocent act won't work, Gina," he jeered. "You were hoping I wouldn't know, but unfortunately I do."

"Know what? You're talking in circles!" But Gina felt she was the one caught in the maelstrom.

"You're a lawyer." Rhyder towered above her, dark and cynical, his powerful maleness a threatening thing. "You know as well as I do that our annulment isn't worth the paper it's printed on."

His harsh statement hit her with the force of a body blow. "What?" she gasped.

"That was perjured testimony I gave under oath," he said coldly. "Technically it invalidates the annulment. Which means, Gina, that you are still my wife."

"No," Gina protested widly. "It can't be true! How? Why?"

His gaze narrowed to piercing steel, slicing over her white face. "To put it delicately, I swore that our marriage was never consummated."

Gina pivoted from him, her fist clenched against her stomach. "Why? Why did you do it?"

"It was the quickest way to end our marriage," Rhyder snapped. "And the cheapest. Divorce can be too complicated and prolonged. You were willing to accept a relatively small settlement and I didn't want to take the chance you would change your mind and ask for more or decide not to end the marriage at all. It wasn't until later that I learned how precarious the separation was."

She closed her eyes, trying to pretend it was all a bad dream if only she could wake up. A vise was clamped on her forearm. The brutal pressure jerked her to face him, snapping her eyes open to be subjected to the harsh glitter of his.

"Are you trying to convince me that you didn't know this?" Rhyder twisted Gina's arm in front of him to draw her nearer.

"I didn't know," she insisted, caught between confusion, anger and fear. "I didn't think." Realization dawned on the reason behind his question. Indignation surfaced. "You believed I intended to blackmail you with the fact that our marriage might possibly be invalid because of your testimony, didn't you?"

"I expected it, yes," he admitted without a trace of apology in his condemning tone. "You weren't above blackmailing for money once. Why shouldn't you do it again?"

"Because—" violence stormed within, emotions whipped and churning from a blacklash of guilt and flaring at his unwarranted accusation "—all I wanted was to eliminate you from my life. I took your money because it's the only thing men like you value and I wanted to make you pay for what you had done to my grandfather and me! I wanted you gone!"

Shooting fire flamed from her imprisoned arm as Rhyder increased the pressure of his grip. Her fragile bones threatened to snap under his crushing hold. Gina reacted instinctively, fighting and straining against the steel trap of his fingers, suffering the madness of a wild animal that would destroy itself rather than submit to capture.

Holding her easily, Rhyder tightened his grip fractionally. Pain weakened her legs, allowing him to pull her closer. The ruthless set of his jaw was menacingly grim with purpose. Fear ran unchecked as Gina struggled in wild desperation.

"So you wanted to eliminate any trace of me from your life?" he mocked her cruelly. His other hand closed around her throat, digging into the tender flesh beneath her jaw. "Wipe away this if you can."

The force of his hand stretched her neck as he lifted her face to receive the descending fury of his mouth. Her free arm came up to rigidly brace her hand against a muscled shoulder, holding him away.

But her lips were brutalized by his savage possession. She strained away to avoid the punishment and degradation he intended to inflict. To a small degree she succeeded, not allowing him to crush her stiff lips.

"I despise you for this." She choked out the words his mouth tried to smother.

It angered Rhyder that she was capable of any resistance. Gina felt it in the rippling muscles of his shoulder. His strangling fingers left her throat and shifted their biting grip to the back of her neck.

The stiffened arm that had kept him at arm's length from her gave way under his renewed assault. Overpowered by his brute strength, she was jerked against him.

The sudden contact with the rock wall of his chest knocked the breath from her lungs. His mouth smothered hers, not allowing Gina to regain it. Blackness swirled behind her closed eyes, weakening her resistance.

His shoulders seemed to wrap around her, dwarfing her with their breadth. She couldn't stop the hands that molded her curves to fit the hard contours of his male length.

Something melted—not in Gina but in Rhyder. The feel of her soft flesh pressed against him stole his wrath. He was no longer ruled by vengeance. The hardness of the arms around her and the bruising pressure of the mouth claiming hers didn't lessen, but subtly changed to exert mastery rather than punishment.

A clock inside her head started to turn backward. The years began to roll away until she was carried back in time. Embers of desire that she had believed were dead ashes were rekindling. Their glowing heat spread through her veins, her heart throbbing with a song she had thought forgotten.

Sensual longings flamed under the expert persuasion of Rhyder's mouth. In moments she would be lost, completely under his control. It would be the final humiliation. Gathering the last remnants of her pride, she wrenched free of his arms, nearly stumbling in the shaky steps she took to put distance between them.