This Fierce Splendor (66 page)

“Fetch, Sam. Get the Casner’s,” he said now, and Sam trotted to a gilt-and-lacquer bar in one corner of the huge room, where he rose on his hind legs and took a bottle of premium Scotch whisky in his powerful jaws.

Sam returned to his master’s side and woofed in satisfaction when Douglas caressed his head. After splashing Scotch into a crystal tumbler. Douglas set
the bottle on a glistening Art Deco side table, sipped his drink, and sighed with contentment.

Outside his darkly elegant office snow drifted over the city. Inside an exquisite music system whispered a seductive jazz selection. The atmosphere was perfect for his reflective mood. The night, New Year’s Eve, was perfect for beginning a new venture. He finished his drink, rubbed his hands together in anticipation, and grinned.

Douglas Kincaid was ready to put his name on a wife.

He leaned back in an opulent wing-backed chair, gave a droll salute to the party going on beyond a one-way wirror, then pressed the button on a speakerphone. “All right, Gert, let’s go through the list.”

An exasperated sigh preceded his assistant’s French-accented voice. “They’re all so unworthy, Monsieur K!”

He chuckled. “I have to start somewhere. Blondes are just round one. Go ahead, Gert.”

“Always the blondes, yes. There are five of them. If you will look to the right of the Picasso near the staircase, you’ll see the Duchess of Atworth. She’s speaking with Monsieur and Madame Trump.”

Douglas studied the packed ballroom framed by the one-way mirror in his hideaway. Finally he spotted the Duchess, engaged in animated conversation with his friends Donald and Ivana. “Not bad,” he told Gert. “But too young.”

“The older ones are more demanding.”

“I like a challenge. Next?”

“The singer Platinum. You recall she sent you that autographed bit of lingerie? She is seated at the grand piano with the maestro.”

“Hmmm. She seems to be tickling him while he tickles the ivories. I need a woman with more discretion—and much better taste in clothes. Black leather and sequins aren’t the style in evening gowns this season, are they?”

“Only in Hollywood, Monsieur.”

“Next.”

“Beside the waterfall, flicking her cigarette ashes into Monsieur’s priceless crystal vase, is the state supreme court judge who fixed Monsieur’s parking ticket.”

He smiled. “I’m likely to marry her just to taste nicotine again. I can’t risk that kind of temptation. Next?”

“A moment, Monsieur K. I’m searching.”

While he waited, Douglas let his gaze drift over the crowd and impatiently tapped a finger on the arm of his chair. Suddenly his field of vision was filled completely with shimmering green silk wrapped around a tall and very voluptuous female body.

Sam woofed softly.

“I agree,” Douglas told him.

His one-way mirror had been overwhelmed by glorious feminine curves swathed in a clinging, floor-length gown. Their owner was so tall and so close that the mirror could only capture her from the neck down. Except for the glass wall between them, Douglas could have reached out his hand and touched her, something he found himself very interested in doing.

She bent over and gazed at herself in the mirror, unknowingly presenting him with an intimate close-up of a mature, beautiful face plus a mane of elegantly shaggy blond hair that looked as if a man’s hands had just ruffled it.

Staring straight at him were large eyes the amber color of his Scotch. She pursed a regal, almost solemn mouth and checked its tinted edges with the tip of a glossy nail. Wrinkling a proudly sculptured nose, she blew a kiss at herself, though it could have been aimed at Douglas. Leaning even closer to the mirror, she adjusted her low-slung bodice. Douglas suddenly found himself admiring a stunning pair of barely covered breasts.

Gert’s exasperated sputtering came over the speakerphone. “
Mon Dieu
! She’s an exhibitionist! She’s
brought her melons to market and put them on display!”

Douglas fell back in his chair and roared with laughter, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the big, beautiful woman who had usurped his whole mirror. Elemental sensations slipped through his blood, and his laughter faded as breath deserted him. “Who is she?” he demanded quickly, his eyes never leaving her.

“Uhmmm, let’s see … let’s see …” He could hear Gert shuffling papers in her office. She yelped softly. “I have no photograph of this one, no statistics, nothing. She isn’t on my list! How could this have happened? She’s a gate-crasher! But how—oh, those fools in security! I’ll have their heads for this. This has never happened before. Are they all asleep?”

“Stunned, not asleep, I imagine.” Douglas continued to gaze admiringly at the woman, who was now running the tip of her tongue across a smudge of color on her lower lip. Douglas leaned forward and placed large, blunt fingers against the glass directly across from her provocatively moving tongue. Raw desire whipped through him so swiftly that he shivered.

Frowning at her power, he withdrew his hand. She must be smart, if she could get past one of the best security teams money could hire. All she had probably had to do was turn those odd, golden eyes on them, and they had been hypnotized. Much as he was now.

She was dressed to provoke male fantasies, but there was nothing sleazy about her. There was, instead, something mysterious.

Around her neck she wore a simple gold chain. Hanging from it was a fascinating pendant with an aged, antique look about it. Stamped into the gold were a pair of rams locked in combat. Above them and to their left stood a fierce-looking griffin. He was separated from the embattled rams by a sword, but also he seemed to be distant from them in attitude, watching them with an air of superiority.

“Do you wish for me to call security?” Gert asked. “Monsieur? Are you there?”

Douglas abruptly realized how mesmerized he was by the combination of the blonde’s eyes and the pendant. He rubbed his forehead. “Don’t report this, Gert. Just go out and talk to her. Tell her I’d like to invite her to my office for a glass of champagne.”

“As you wish, Monsieur K.”

Douglas flicked a switch on the phone console, and the mirror went dark. He shut his eyes and relished the moment when he’d meet his incredible gate-crasher in person. A minute later the phone beeped.

“Monsieur? She is eager for an introduction.” Gert’s voice held a tone of polite disgust. “But she asks to visit Kincaid Park. Such arrogance!”

Douglas laughed again. The blonde had studied him. She knew about his private forest atop the building. He liked her attention to detail—especially since it concerned him—and he liked her assertive attitude. “All right. I’ll grab a coat and go up right now. Tell her it’ll be cold. Provide a coat if she doesn’t have something warm enough.”

“Yes. She appears to be unaccustomed to covering herself.”

Douglas rose from his chair and gestured for Sam to follow. Where he went in the world, Sam went also, whether to a business meeting, a charity ball, a boxing match, or to meet a beautiful woman.

When Douglas stepped out of the elevator into the man-made forest atop his penthouse, he found the blonde waiting. She wore an emerald-green cape that matched her dress. It swirled around her from shoulders to feet. Lamps hidden in the shrubbery cast shadows on her that lent her an even greater air of mystery. Her face was teasingly obscured by the cape’s hood, but he couldn’t miss her slow, deliberate smile, filled with invitation.

Douglas felt his pulse throb in the most masculine places, but also acknowledged an unusual feeling of
fascination. The wind whipped the cape, molding it to her statuesque body. Douglas raised the cashmere collar of his overcoat and gallantly swept a hand toward a path in the forest. “Please. It’s less windy among the trees.”

She nodded but didn’t say a word. Growing more intrigued by the second, Douglas watched her glide into the thick fir woods as if she were a beautiful phantom disappearing into a land of giant Christmas trees. Sam galloped after her, as if compelled. Douglas followed with long, hurried strides, feeling a little ridiculous for being so easily led, but supremely confident that he’d have the upper hand soon.

She stopped and turned to face him. He halted also, and they gazed at each other in the shadows, no more than five feet apart. Snowflakes floated down around them. “Well, what do you think of New Year’s Eve at Kincaid Park?” he asked. “Not bad for a kid who started out selling cheap soap on street corners, hmmm? Impressive, isn’t it?”

He swung about slowly, his arms out, asking her to admire his hard-won paradise and comment appropriately. The second that he turned his back, he heard a soft popping sound. Something slapped him on the left side of the rump. Even through his thick overcoat, his tuxedo, and his custom-made underwear, he felt a sharp sting.

Douglas whirled around. Lethargy washed over him. He took a groggy step and swayed in place. She held a small pistol in one hand. She wasn’t smiling anymore. Woozy, he craned his head and looked at his wounded hip. He fumbled with the long dart that protruded from his coat, and it fell to the soft pine-needle cushion of the forest floor.

He was not an easy man to conquer, and for a second fury nearly overcame narcotic bliss. After cursing viciously, he told her, “You’ll never get it—whatever it is you want. My people have orders not to pay any ransoms.”

She laughed.
Laughed
. Then she crossed her arms and watched him with an expression of undisguised victory on her face. Sam stepped forward and studied her closely, worried but curious. Sam had class; Sam wouldn’t attack a woman. This one seemed to know that, because she clucked to him calmly, and he wagged his tail.

Douglas groaned with frustration as his bones seemed to melt. He sank to the ground, fury giving way to overpowering sleepiness. Rolling onto his back, he yawned helplessly. “Dammit. Dammit.”

Dimly he was aware of the woman speaking to someone—not him, apparently, because her voice was too low. Sam came to him and lay down, oddly reassured, it seemed. He put his head on Douglas’s shoulder. Then the woman walked over and knelt beside him, a radio in her hands, and he heard a metallic sliding sound as she collapsed the antenna.

“You can’t get away with … whatever,” Douglas protested, every word weighing heavy on his tongue.

The woman leaned over him, and he squinted up into her whisky eyes. Iced whisky, now. “You won’t be telling me what I can and cannot do,” she said. The Scottish burr in her voice was a shock. She chucked him under the chin.

“You’re an
arrrogant
devil, Douglas Kincaid, and no credit to your Scot heritage. Now go to sleep. I don’t mean any harm to you.” She raised her head, tossed the cape back, and jerked off the blond wig. Chestnut-colored hair, glinting in the forest lamps, wound around the crown of her head in flat braids. She studied the snowy night sky.

Douglas groaned with frustration when he heard the whir of a helicopter. He tried to protest one more time, but now his mouth refused to work.

When she met his eyes again, he glared sleepily at her. The grim set of her mouth widened into a sardonic smile. “You’ve naught to frown over, my fine, handsome, worthless Mr. Kincaid. You’re about to learn a lesson in humility, that’s all.”

The hell I will
, he thought, and feel asleep.

Elgiva MacRoth didn’t relax until she and her companions were on their ramshackle little airplane headed north over Canada. Getting Douglas Kincaid out of the city had been a terrifying experience, considering that the helicopter had nearly fallen apart.

Her cousin Andrew had warned, with great foresight, that the machine appeared to be in dubious condition and would probably be hard to maneuver. But they had had no choice. Happy to acquire a helicopter at all, they had gotten one only by bribing its drunken owner at a tiny, rural airfield in upstate New York.

Even now, far away from the dreadful helicopter, Elgiva didn’t feel safe. Their cargo plane was protesting every minute of the journey back to Scotland. It was too old to be hopping all over the northern hemisphere in search of the shortest distance across the Atlantic. Each time Andrew landed it for refueling, the cabin walls rattled and the floor shook.

Considering their third-rate getaway vehicles and their absolute lack of criminal expertise, it was a wonder they’d managed to kidnap Douglas Kincaid at all. The fates were obviously on their side, she thought.

Using the wall struts to keep her balance, Elgiva staggered to the back. Douglas Kincaid’s wonderful dog trailed her like an old friend. She went behind a curtain and changed the embarrassing green dress for tan corduroy trousers and a brightly colored sweater she had knitted herself. She slipped her feet into comfortable leather hiking shoes. The trappings of home began to soothe her nerves as she returned to her captive.

It was time to become more familiar with the man who was going to change—a less dedicated person might say
ruin
—her life. She took a chair beside a specially installed bed. “Aye, we’re anxious for you to ride safely,” she muttered to Kincaid. “You devil.”

As she looked at his face, still set in lines of strength even while he slept, her heart rose in her throat. The next few weeks would go so much easier if he had been born ugly and dull. Elgiva never tried to rationalize her emotions; she might attack them with rigid discipline until they were subdued, but she never lied to herself about them.

So now she admitted that Douglas Kincaid was attractive, at least on a physical level. That didn’t make her despise him any less, but she knew she’d have to deal with him as a provocative man as well as a prisoner, so she began preparing herself to do it.

Brusquely she unsnapped the belts that passed across his chest and thighs. “Your legs are too long and skinny for such a puffed-out rooster’s chest,” she taunted, as she unbuttoned his overcoat and flipped it back on both sides.

“And you’ve got big, mean hands like a gorilla’s. Oh, I know all about you, Douglas. You were a boxer in your young years. Hmmmph! Someone pounded that nose a time or two, from the looks of it. What a crooked, nasty thing it is. Suits you—suits that thick,
belligerrrant
chin. I’ll bet that some of your flashy white teeth are false, and the rest are capped.”