Deceptive Love (13 page)

Keri felt at least one of them must remain in the office to answer the phone. There was also the unspoken but understood reason that Keri just wasn't up to enduring more speculative looks.

Keri had begun to pray that the rest of the day would pass on winged feet and that, most importantly, she would be gone before Dain returned from his conference. She had never been a clockwatcher before, but the agonizingly slow sweep of the minute hand as it crept toward five o'clock reminded her of the movie
The Day the Earth Stood Still
The minute hand quivered and strained to bridge that last sixty-second gap between fifty-nine minutes and five o'clock. When it finally reached Keri's goal it seemed to shiver, exhausted, a runner who falls gasping through the tape at the end of the race.

Keri stuck her head into her old office. "Bridget, it's just gone five o'clock and I'm going home!" she announced in heartfelt tones.

"Go ye," Bridget adjured her. "Flee as though the 'deil' himself was after a-catching ye." She laughed at Keri's astounded expression. "My mother's granny was from the old land, but it doesn't need second sight to know that you'd rather not run up against Dain Randolph again today."

Keri glanced involuntarily around, as though the very mention of his name could be sufficient to conjure him up. Her grin was a bit forced, but then she and Bridget had gone through a lot together today. It was true that she wanted desperately to avoid Dain, but not exactly for the reasons Bridget thought Bridget hadn't seen, nor been the recipient of, that traumatizing kiss. Keri didn't plan to be around when Dain had more time today.

Keri joined the departing stream of workers. There were many appreciative glances, but no overtures. Rumor, supposition, and speculation swirled about her, cloaking her status in mystery, and so the aspiring Lotharios walked warily. No one wanted to be the one to try to poach on Dain Randolph's presumed territory.

Had Keri realized what lay behind her blessed isolation, she would have been upset, but she was so intent on escaping that nothing penetrated her abstraction. It's doubtful if she would have noticed any overture short of a forceable attempt at seduction! She was more attuned to the fear of hearing Dain
's
deep voice call her name or of feeling his powerful grip on her shoulder preventing her flight.

In spite of her morbid certainty that it couldn't possibly be as easy as this to get away from RanCo, Keri slipped into her car and gunned it from the parking lot without hail or hindrance. Fortunately for Keri, sometimes there isn't a policeman around when you don't want him, because she darted through the evening traffic like a rabbit running broken field for its burrow. If there happened to be an opening, she took it. If an opening wasn't available, she made one. From the new Randolph Building at Tyson's Corner, Virginia, where RanCo was housed, to her apartment in Alexandria, Keri ducked and wove her agile way through the homeward-bound traffic. She parked her car and sprinted to the waiting elevator. If Schyler had been unlucky enough to have been lurking to waylay her, she would have left footprints on his chest in her haste to.

She slid the key into the lock, turned the doorknob in one smooth motion, and pulled the door open. She entered the apartment, shot the deadbolt, and kicked off her shoes went on the nearest table, her jacket caught momentarily on the arm of the overstuffed chair and then slid to the floor in an untidy heap. Keri didn't even pause. If ever anyone deserved a drink, she did.

A survey of the contents of her refrigerator was disappointing. There was no chilled white wine, her preferred drink, so she dropped a few ice cubes into a six-ounce tumbler, splashed in a large dollop of Amaretto, and filled the rest of the glass with club soda. The soda cut the richness of the Amaretto and the sweet bite of the liqueur was velvet smooth over her tongue.

She stood in the middle of her small kitchen, contemplating the glass she rolled reflectively between her palms. For dinner she had left a small steak marinating all day in a gin and ginger teriyaki sauce. She had put it on the counter when she came in to warm to room temperature. The broiled steak, sided by saffron rice and a tossed green salad, heavy on the cherry tomatoes and cucumbers, would suffice. Should she eat or bathe first?

A warm, relaxing bubble-filled bath . . . her old family doctor couldn't have written a better prescription. Keri sipped delicately at the drink she had carried into the bathroom with her. She lifted a slender leg and watched the bubbles run from her ankle, over the curve of her calf to the back of her knee to rejoin the high drift of scented bubbles around her thighs.

Deep in the heated peace of the water her tension-taut muscles had at last started to unknot and she found she could consider the day's events with some measure of detachment.

Miss Barth. That viper's fangs had been pulled. Keri had the leverage now and she'd not hesitate to use it. Miss Barth had woefully underestimated her opponent and the heed she'd have to pay for that miscalculation would be 
a civil tongue and a fair division of labor. Dain Randolph might not notice it, but his office was going to be a happier place to work, for at least two of his secretaries.

In the short time she had been one of Dain's secretaries, pre-transformation Keri had pegged Elise as a typical office tyrant. Bridget had been doing more than her fair division of the office output for a long time. Like many of her kind, the glamorous Elise had shirked hard work when she could shift it over to another desk. Elise had answered phones prettily and taken dictation crisply, but it had been Bridget and later Keri who turned out most of the flawlessly typed letters for Dain's signature. Well, from now on Elise's nails would lose their feline length and get clipped to accommodate the typing she was going to have to do! The thought gave Keri no end of satisfaction.

The water was cooling and the bubbles dissolving rapidly in a spatter of tiny pops. Keri felt clean, languid, and slightly hollow. She flipped the drain lever up with her toe, stood up, pulled the shower curtain closed, and rinsed off with a quick warm shower spray. She patted dry with a thick terry towel, smoothed on Chantilly body lotion with long deft strokes, and finished with a scented dusting of the matching powder.

The diluted dregs of her drink went down the washbasin as she pulled out the pins that secured her high-piled hair. It tumbled down in a tousled mass to frame a face that still showed the effects of the emotional day. Keri's green eyes had a harassed and haunted air and she noticed that, in repose, her mouth was still firmly pulled in at the edges.

Keri slipped into fresh bikini briefs and a thin, peasant- style long housedress. The off-the-shoulder style didn't allow for a bra, but she wasn't going anywhere. It was a comfortable dress, and the abstract swirl of blues and greens with touches of rust falling in a long sweep to the floor from the elastic band under her breasts, was a cheerful splash of color, suitable for lightening a black mood.

The meal helped her hollow feeling, but didn't really seem to do much for her mental condition. She still had slightly sick twinges whenever she thought about the day's events, and after she had washed and put away the dinner dishes she fixed herself an Irish coffee and curled up on her couch. Mendelssohn and Mozart held no appeal for her this evening so she hunted through her collection and located some Mireille Mathieu records. The clear, rich, sometimes sad, sometimes happy tones of the French singer seemed to fit her mood perfectly.

She was relaxed on the couch, happily, at last, thinking of nothing in particular when, in the middle of "Ciao, Mon Coeur," the doorbell began its irritating and totally unwelcome announcement. Keri shot up off the couch in a reflex action and stood, heart pounding, trying to regain the composure that the abrupt, unexpected summons had destroyed.

"Oh, blast! And the peephole hasn't been installed yet," she wailed to herself. She tried to ignore the repeated chiming, but whoever was on the other side of her front door knew she was in there and wasn't going to go away. "If that's Schyler I'll have his guts for garters, as Granny used to say," she muttered as she stalked up to the door.

As soon as she began to manipulate the deadbolt, the doorbell fell silent. Keri hissed in exasperation as the lock hung momentarily and then released. She pulled the door back and stood uncompromisingly in the doorway, barring entrance to her apartment. If she'd had a flaming sword handy she would have waved it for effect. She wasn't in the mood for company!

Dain towered over her and, from the look of him, wasn't in any better mood than she was. He was still dressed as he had been at the office except that he had removed his tie and stuffed it into the pocket of his jacket, which he carried slung over his shoulder.

"You shouldn't just open the door, Keri," he growled. "You don't know who might be on the other side. Get your landlord to install a peephole."

"You're absolutely right! Go away!" Keri spoke through clenched teeth. She started to step back into her apartment but stopped when he took a step after her. Obviously he planned to follow her inside. She blocked the doorway. "What do you want?" she asked in her most inhospitable voice. "You can't come in."

"I want to talk to you and I can come in." As he spoke he draped his coat over the doorknob of her door, and grasping her firmly about the waist, lifted her in one smooth motion back into the apartment, setting her to one side of the door. He retrieved his coat from the doorknob, shut the door behind him, and much as Keri had done when she came into the apartment earlier, tossed his coat at the nearest chair. His aim was better than hers had been.

It wouldn't do any good to sputter "You can't do this" to Dam, because he
had
done it, but Keri wasn't ready to accept a heavy-handed fait accompli. She planted her hands on her hips and regarded him wrathfully. "I don't want to talk to you, Dain Randolph. I've had my fill of RanCo today, and that includes its major stockholder. Go."

He ignored her. He glanced around the comfortable room and cocked an ear at the music. "Very nice." He seemed to be including and approving both her decorating and musical tastes in that succinct appraisal. Keri seethed.

Before she could say anything though, Dain rubbed the back of his neck weairly and announced abruply, "I'm hungry. Can you fix me something? I just got out of the meeting with Simonds and the others. We didn't stop to eat and I'm starved. I came directly here," he added unnecessarily.

Since she obviously wasn't going to be able to shift him bodily, she decided that perhaps if she fed him and gave him a drink he might go peacefully. It had worked with Schyler, even though he had brought his own provisions, she amended with an inner, mental smile. Besides, Dain had said he wanted to talk to her and she knew him well enough by now to know that he wouldn't go until he had said all he planned to.

"All right, I'll feed you," she agreed with less than complete enthusiasm. "Come fix yourself a drink and then stay out of my kitchen. Today's
Washington Post
is on the 
coffee table and you can choose whatever type of music you're in the mood for."

"Yes, ma'am," he responded with suspicious meekness and followed her obediently into the small kitchen. While she started the meal preparations he poured himself a hefty scotch and then removed his bulk from the kitchen with lamblike docility. Soon Grieg's Piano Concerto in A Minor filtered into the kitchen. Now
what
kind of mood did that indicate?

Keri took a sizable T-bone steak out of the freezer, sprinkled it heavily with a special herbed and seasoned salt and ran it under the broiler. He looked like a medium- rare-steak eater. In her lower oven she reheated the saffron rice she'd cooked for her own supper, plus a couple of brown-and-serve rolls. She tossed another green salad threw on cherry tomatoes and sliced cucumber with a heavy hand, and dosed the whole salad with Parmesan cheese and Italian dressing. The steak was ready to turn, so she seasoned the other side and began to set the small dining table. By the time she'd laid the table, carried in the salad, and dished up the rice and rolls, the steak was ready. She slapped the steak on the plate beside the rice, grabbed up the butter dish and marched back to the dining alcove.

"Do you want water, coffee, tea, or another drink with your meal?" She spoke to indicate that she was ready for him to come to the table. He hadn't been reading the proffered newspaper. He'd been stretched out on her couch, shoes off, hands clasped behind his head, staring up at the ceiling.

When she spoke, he turned his head lazily and then sat up with complete aplomb. He slipped back into his shoes, skirted the coffee table, bending to pick up his now empty glass as he passed by, and approached the table. She watched his eyes widen when he saw what she'd managed to arrange for his delectation and he grinned ruefully at her, with just a touch of apology.

"I didn't mean for you to go to a lot of trouble. I expected something on the order of a cheese sandwich or an omelet. This is a feast." The look he cast over the succulent steak was frankly rapacious.

"I make lousy omelets," she informed him, grinning slightly, "and you looked hungry."

"I am," he agreed smoothly, but he wasn't looking at the steak anymore.

"Sit, eat," she urged. For a moment he had looked as though food were the furthest thing from his mind, and she wanted his attention firmly fixed on the steak, not on her face and mouth! She had the sinking feeling that Dain wasn't going to be as easily gotten rid of as Schyler had been.

The steak won, for the moment at least, but Keri had no idea by how narrow a margin. While Dain began to eat, Keri fixed him some instant iced tea at his request and then came to sit across from him at the table. She had fixed herself another very weak Amaretto and soda and she sipped on it from time to time as she watched him dispose entirely of the meal.

When he had eaten the last morsel of the last roll, he got up and carried his dishes and silverware into the kitchen. He hadn't spoken another word while he was eating, which was fine with Keri because her fund of small talk had dried up and blown away. Dain didn't look as forbidding as he had when he came in the door but he couldn't by any stretch of the imagination be called relaxed and expansive either. There was something on his mind and