Low Country Liar (20 page)

If Lisa had been given a moment of warning, some little sign that she was about to be unmasked, she might have been better able to defend herself. But no, Slade had let her tell more lies, given indications that he believed them, then pounced like a sleek panther on an unwary prey. She was completely at his mercy—or his lack of it.

"I—" She began, intimidated by his sheer masculinity and the ruthless set of his hard jaw.

"No more lies, Lisa!" Slade slashed away her attempt to explain, looming closer to her as if he would silence her forever.

Lisa flattened herself against the filing cabinet, the metal cool to the hands she spread against its surface. Her left arm was seized and twisted upward by steel fingers.

"Where is my ring?" he accused.

The pain he was causing her was more than just physical. There was the mental anguish of his slicing voice, wounding her heart with its ability to hurt deeply. When she didn't answer immediately, he increased the pressure on her arm, unaware of how fierce his grip was.

"In my pocket," she answered, biting back the cry of pain.

"It never had a chance to be warmed by your skin before you were slipping it off," Slade muttered savagely. Swiftly he made the change to sarcasm, lifting her left hand to force the gold wedding band into her view. "You slipped it off to put on this." His upper lip curled in a sneer.

"Give me a chance—"

"No!" The denial seemed to explode from him as his free hand fastened itself around her throat. His glittering look was darkly menacing, intensified by the coldly ruthless line of his mouth. "You've had your last chance."

But Lisa wasn't really frightened. She seemed to know instinctively that no matter how great his anger was toward her, Slade would never harm her physically. He didn't need to, not when he could cut her heart into ribbons with words.

The door to the reception area opened and Drew came sauntering into Lisa's office. He came to an abrupt halt at the sight of them, his mouth opening for a speechless second.

"Slade, what the hell are you doing?" He demanded in a voice that sounded positive he was seeing things. A disbelieving frown creased his forehead. "Ann—
"

"No, not Ann." Slade's hand left her throat to grab a handful of the red wig.

Gasping in pain, Lisa caught at his wrist to stop him. "Slade, it's pinned!"

"Then unpin it and take the damned thing off!" He released her completely and took a step away, anger vibrating from him even as he remained motionless.

While Lisa shakily removed the hairpins that secured the wig to her scalp, no one uttered a word. Drew was stunned and confused, especially when silver blond hair tumbled to Lisa's shoulders. There wasn't any satisfaction in Slade's angrily grim expression at the completion of the task. He took the wig from her unresisting fingers.

"Here." He turned to Drew and tossed him the scarlet-haired wig. "You always claimed to be partial to redheads. Take it and get out!"

In reflex action, Drew had caught it. Now he stared at it, not quite able to take in what was going on. "But—" He looked back at Slade and frowned.

"Out!" was the acid command.

Glancing uncertainly at Lisa, Drew finally turned and hesitantly retreated to the reception area, closing the door quietly behind him. Slade's attention returned to her, but Lisa sensed that Drew's interruption had given him a measure of control he hadn't previously had.

He stared at her, assessing her with narrowed eyes. "The wig was an excellent red herring, Lisa, if you'll pardon the expression," he jeered. "I never suspected for an instant that Ann and Lisa were the same person, but that's what you counted on, wasn't it?"

"Yes." It was foolish to deny it. Lisa lifted a weary hand to brush the hair from her face, letting it stay at the back of her neck and pressing her fingers against the throbbing tenseness that was there.

"And your lying green eyes," he snapped. "Equaled only by the falsehoods that come so easily from your lips."

For the second time she was hauled roughly against him. Her heart fluttered a warning before his mouth closed over hers to kiss her long and hungrily—and angrily. Her lips were parted by the bruising urgency of his. For a few delirious moments, she thrilled to the passion of his love, deepening the kiss with a fiery response of her own.

His arms circled her to hold her in their vice, while her own hands spread over his muscled shoulders. Just when she thought Slade loved her enough to forgive her for deceiving him, he broke off the kiss. Her eyes fluttered open to see the self-disgust and contempt that thinned his mouth. The pain to her heart was swift and stabbing.

A moan of protest came from her throat as she rested her forehead against him. "No matter what else you think about me, you must know that I love you, Slade."

Violently she was thrust from him, long impatient strides cleaving a distance between them. Several feet away he stopped, muscles rigid, to glare over his shoulder.

"Do you really love me?" Slade taunted cynically. "Or is it simply convenient to love me?"

"No," Lisa denied in a choked voice. "It isn't convenient to love you."

Not when she was faced with the dilemma of either keeping silent about his unethical if not illegal use of Mitzi's money or exposing him. If she didn't love him, the choice would be much easier to make. In fact, there probably wouldn't even be the need for a choice.

Slade turned his head away, tipping it back to stare at the ceiling. "It's amazing how I could have been so blind not to see it before now," he sighed bitterly, lowering his head with a grim shake. "Everything clicks into place now like the pieces of a puzzle, fitting perfectly. No wonder you didn't have any secretarial skills. You aren't a secretary. The agency people have never heard of you,
have they?"

"No," Lisa admitted.

"And I opened the door for you when I mistook you for one of their girls," he muttered with a sharp edge of irony. "There's nothing wrong with your eyes, either. You only wore those sunglasses to hide their color, didn't you?"

"Yes, there's nothing wrong with—"

"And your two girl friends, you invented them to explain your whereabouts during the day to Mitzi so she
wouldn't wonder where you were spending your time. You don't have any old college friends in Charleston, do you?" Slade accused.

"None that I know—"

"Which explains why you were so unfamiliar with the sights of the city," he interrupted coldly. "You haven't seen anything, not even Brookgreen Gardens. That's why you didn't remember the basket stands along the highway. Because you'd never been anywhere close to them."

"Okay, so I haven't,
"
Lisa retorted in a frustrated spurt of defiance.

His needle-sharp words were painful. She couldn't continue to endure being the whipping boy for his anger. It wasn't in her nature to keep getting hurt without trying to hurt back.

Pivoting, Slade faced her, his hands on his hips in proud challenge, his dark gaze relentless searching her face. "The day I found you in my office supposedly straightening my papers, you were really going through them, weren't you? What were
you looking for? The Talmadge folder.
?"

"Yes." Lisa tossed back her head, blinking at the tears that burned her eyes, refusing to shed one of them.

"Why? What did you hope to gain?" he demanded. "I wanted to find out what you were doing with Mitzi's money," she answered truthfully and without apology.

"My God!" Slade muttered, cursing savagely beneath his breath.

"What did you expect me to do?" Lisa stormed. "Let you steal every dime of it?"

The tears nearly escaped to form a waterfall down her lashes. She barely managed to check their descent in time, glancing quickly away from him to open her green eyes as wide as she could and swallow the lump in her throat.

"And what did you find out when you got your greedy hands on the folder?" He was snarling, his teeth bared in challenge.

"Nothing!" she breathed in a rush. "I never had a chance to do more than open it!"

"And that's the way it's going to stay!" Slade declared. "Because you're through. Your charade is over and I don't want Lisa Talmadge in this office!
"

Lisa gulped in a deep breath, held it for an instant and expelled it in a long, shuddering sigh. She couldn't meet the steel black quality of his eyes and glanced away. She should have known it would end like this.

"Do you know what's the matter with you, Slade Blackwell?" It was a taut challenge, flung out in the despair of heartbreak.

"Yes," he replied grimly. "I foolishly thought I could expect trust from someone like you."

Trust! Someone like you! The accusation hurt unbearably, because it came from Slade and because he didn't have the right to cast the first stone.

She was caught in the grip of an impotent kind of anger. Too many conflicting emotions had become trapped inside and had to be released. It was a jumbled assortment that came out, haft love and haft hate, a coin whose two sides had joined to make one.

"That isn't what's eating you," she denied with a vigorous shake of her head. "No, it's your precious male ego. You can't stand it that I managed to fool you even for a few days. It's too damaging to your fragile male pride to be taken in by a mere inferior female. All you can think about is that I made a fool of you!"

He took a threatening step toward her, then checked himself. His glittering eyes scanned her pale features. Slade seemed to control his temper with difficulty.

"What are you trying to prove, Lisa?" he breathed raggedly. "That you can get under my skin without any effort?"

"No," Lisa answered tightly. "I just want you to admit what's really bothering you."

"You want to know what's really bothering me?" His jaw hardened into bronze. "I'm trying to figure out how I got myself engaged to a greedy little bitch like you."

Lisa recoiled as if he had slapped her face, the blood draining from her cheeks and her stomach muscles tying themselves in a nauseous lump. Shaking fingers searched frantically through the pockets of her jacket until they found the hard gemstone of his ring.

"That's easily remedied." Her voice was hoarse, the wounded cry of an animal in intense pain. "You can take your ring back and you won't have to wonder any more!"

In that fleeting moment when she had taken her attention from him, Slade had crossed the space that separated them. The diamond ring was stripped from her trembling hand and her left was captured.

"I am not taking it back!" he snapped, and began twisting the plain gold band from her third finger. Lisa struggled to free her left hand from his bruising grasp, but he was too strong for her. When the finger was bare, he roughly pushed on the diamond. "This ring is going on and it's staying on."

"No."

"Dammit, yes!" He gave her a hard shake that rattled her teeth. "When you leave here, you're going to march yourself straight to Mitzi's house and pretend that nothing has happened. Because nothing has. Nothing has changed."

"Hasn't it?" Lisa retorted bitterly.

"No, it hasn't," Slade informed her in a steely voice. "And when I get there tonight, you're going to pretend to be the happy bride-to-be that Mitzi expects to see."

"Why?" she breathed in protest.

"Because we're going to be married and you damned well better get used to the idea," he declared. "The only thing that's different now is I've found out about your lies. I don't know—maybe you're incapable of the truth. But you are going to be my wife, make no mistake about that."

"What—" Lisa hesitated, daring to hope "—about Mitzi's money?"

"You don't need to worry about that," he jeered. "Once we're married, what's mine is yours and what's yours is mine."

Lisa flinched, hurt. "Is that why you're marrying me?"

"Don't put that question in my mind," Slade ordered crisply. "Or I'll start asking myself if that's why you're marrying me."

"Slade—" she began earnestly.

"No!" He released her, breathing in deeply as he moved away. "No more talking, not until I've had a chance to think a few more things out. Go on back to Mitzi's." His mouth quirked cynically. "I'm sure you can come up with some story to explain why you're returning sooner than you planned."

"That was unnecessary," Lisa stiffened in resentment.

"I'll see you at six," Slade said, ignoring her comment with autocratic ease. "You be there."

"I will," she answered as curtly as he had given the order. "You have my word on that."

"I don't want your word," he snapped. "I just want you there."

Lisa stared at him silently through a mist of proud tears, then walked to the desk to retrieve her bag from the drawer. She could feel his gaze watching her every move, but he offered not one word of parting when she walked out of the door into the reception room.

Drew was sitting on the edge of the receptionist's desk when Lisa emerged. His searching look was echoed by the receptionist, curiosity gleaming on both their faces.

Lisa guessed that they were bound to have overheard some of what she and Slade had said. Neither of them had given much thought to the volume of their voices at times. Her gaze bounced away from them as she started toward the street door. Drew straightened from the desk.