Torn Asunder (15 page)

She breathed a
sigh of relief when the door to the apartment was flung open and Max's smiling
face was there. He took one quick look at them, then pulled Cle into a loose
embrace, ignoring Dev's hostile glance.

"Why don't you tell 'Sir Dark Looks'
to get lost," Max whispered before he released her.

Cle smiled, saying nothing, but catching
sight of Jaime standing in the center of the room. Two women were hanging on
his every word. She homed in on him, not looking left or right as she crossed
to his side.

Jaime's
professional look of boredom was in place. When he saw it was Cle, he started
for a moment, the mask of ennui slipping. "What in hell? Oh!" Jaime
bowed at the two women. "If you'll excuse me, ladies."

The women looked at Cle with active
dislike for plucking their prize from them.

Jaime gripped
Cle's arm above the elbow and steered her toward the bar. "You look lovely
in my dress, my gorgeous deceiver. You have some explaining to do."

Cle accepted the
drink Jaime handed to her, hoping he had remembered to make it non-alcoholic.
She sipped the seltzer laced with lime and sighed with pleasure. She felt like
lifting out one of the ice cubes and rubbing it on her forehead. Apparently
Max's air conditioning wasn't working.

"You looked
flushed, Cle." Jaime looked at her with disfavor. "You should think
cool as I do. I told Max to turn off the air conditioning. It's poisonous for
the lungs, you know."

"Jaime,
you're outrageous, telling Max what to do in his own home." Cle pushed a
breath of air upward from her mouth trying to cool her face, succeeding in
lifting a few tendrils of hair from her warm forehead. She blessed the thought
that had made her change her mind and twist her hair into a knot in back. She
was glad they had walked out onto the small semicircular balcony with a
beautiful view of
Sydney
and the ocean. There was a blessed breeze.

"Cle, stop
pussyfooting around!" Jaime exclaimed as she leaned over the railing and
inhaled the cool breeze. "What the hell possessed you to let Carstairs
move into the apartment? Are you out of your tiny mind? I thought you wanted to
be rid of the man."

Cle turned her head away from the sights
and looked at Jaime's pinched face. "I didn't want him to move in. He just
did it. I do want to be rid of him and I'm going to get rid of him." She
took a long drink of the seltzer. "How to do it is what has me
flummoxed," she mumbled.

"We'll call the police and have the
bastard ejected." Jaime was incensed. "Do you know that he told me to
stay out of your life, that he said he would punch me in the nose if I didn't
stay away from you?"

Cle laughed.
"Jaime, you're exaggerating. Dev would never threaten..." Her voice
trailed off as she remembered Dev coming to her room. "I'll break his
damned neck for him," he'd said. And that wasn't his first threat to Jaime
and Max. Cle looked at Jaime blankly. "Maybe he's going through change of
life." She immediately wondered what ever made her say such a stupid
thing. Dev was having an awful effect on her. She was acting like a drunk or a
druggie and she neither drank nor took drugs. He was a menace, a sharp-tongued
enemy of her peace of mind.

"Cle? Cle,
come out of your daydream." Jaime shook her arm until she looked at him.
"Come with me, I have something to show you." He didn't wait for her
response, but pulled her after him. They reentered the room, now overflowing
with people, some of whom Cle recognized. With a hot stab she watched Dev
incline his head, smiling, toward a beaming Ginna Bell. She turned away fast
and followed Jaime blindly from the room and down a short hallway.

The noise was muted in the bedroom areas
and without the press of people, it seemed several degrees cooler.

Jaime closed the
door behind them and pulled a large portfolio from the closet. He opened it on
the bed.

All Cle's firm intentions to stay near
the open window disappeared when she saw the colorful sketches that spilled
from the case. "Jaime! These are something!" She gasped as she sank
down next to him on the bed and took a sketch from his hands. "Wait a
minute." Cle rummaged through her purse until she found her granny
glasses, settling them on her nose.

"Lord, Cle, you look like a librarian."
Jaime sniffed. "Whatever made you adopt such an unattractive affectation?"

She made a face
at him, then looked back at the sketch in her hand. "It's not an
affectation. Max took me to his eye doctor. The doctor suggested this
prescription to prevent further eyestrain. I like them."

"Fool."

Cle ignored him. "This line will be
a hit, Jaime. I love your uses of satin... here... and here."

Jaime sounded smug as usual. "All my
lines are good, of course, but I do think this one has excessive panache. Remember
the day you wanted a dress for a dinner you were attending with
Carstairs?" As Cle nodded, grimacing, he added, "Yes that was the
time you got so roaring drunk, dear Cleora."

Cle pushed at him
and Jaime out of balance fell back on the bed, just missing the sketches. Cle
leaned over him, one fist shaking in his face, laughter bubbling in her.
"I was not roaring drunk, you—"

The door crashed open behind her and Cle
swiveled her head, a startled look on her face. Jaime raised his head from
where he reclined so that now he and Cle were much closer.

Dev stood there,
his face working as though every muscle had turned to grinding stone. The
movement up and down his throat looked forced and painful, his eyes were a
leaping green fire. "Get off that damned bed, Cle." The measured
words were more menacing than if they had been shouted.

She looked at
him, not moving, her hand still curled into a fist, scarcely recognizing the
man who stood in the crouched fighter's stance in the doorway. Coming to life,
she jumped to her feet, looking down at a goggle-eyed Jaime who was not trying
to sit up, then back to

Dev
whose hands opened and closed in spasmodic rhythm. "What do you think
you're going to do?"

"I'm going to take him apart,"
Dev said.

Cle yelped and moved, until she was
standing at the end of the bed, between a just-rising Jaime and a bullish Dev.
"Don't you dare say such a thing, Dev Carstairs. What's the matter with
you? Have you gone completely crazy?" She was torn between a desire to
scream at him and a need not to let the other people in Max's apartment know
what was going on. "Dev, do you have a few slices missing in your loaf?
Just where do you get off following me into this room and—"

"Bedroom. Call it what it is, a
bedroom," Dev growled, his eyes shooting at her like green rockets, then
fixing right back on Jaime. "Now get out of the way. I'm going to teach
your little dressmaker a lesson. Then I'll take care of—"

"Dressmaker!" Jaime roared,
leaping from the bed and pushing around Cle, who tried to hold him back.
"Why you insufferable English snob, where do you get off calling anyone
names? You and your pompous friends... We'll see who will pull who... whom...
Oh damn. Just let me get my hands on Little Lord Fauntleroy..." Jaime's
voice was loud enough to shatter glass and no amount of shushing on Cle's part
was having an affect.

She turned to face Dev when she heard him
snarl, knowing that neither man had any control at the moment. She had a vision
of her body being sandwiched between the two angry men as she saw Dev thrust
forward and felt Jaime jostling at her back. Dev put out his hands to lift her
out of the way when all at once he was pulled backward. The surprise on his
face would have been ludicrous if Cle had been able to feel anything but relief
at the sight of Max and Alistair grimly clutching Dev's arms.

Dev struggled with them and for a moment
it looked like he would throw the two of them down when all at once he
subsided, his eyes like a death ray on Cle. "Let me go. I'm not going to
do anything. I've decided that it isn't worth spoiling a party." He kept
his eyes on Cle.

For no reason that she could name, a
blush stole up her neck and face. She had done nothing to earn that look in
Dev's eyes. She could easily have strangled him at that moment, relishing the
thought of his neck between her hands. How dare he sit in judgment of her!

Dev looked at Jaime. "Get back to
New York
where you
belong. The next time we meet, I'll make sure we're alone."

"You don't
dictate to me," Jaime said, outraged, his face contorted. "And I'll
look forward to meeting you again."

"No more of
this," Max insisted, his lips a straight line as he looked from the men to
Cle who sagged against the bed post.

Dev shook off the
restraining hands and looked at Max. "I'm sure you'll understand if I
don't stay. Of course, I apologize for causing a disturbance at your
party."

"Of
course," Max said, his face as taut as Dev's. "I'll see to it that
Cle gets home all right."

"She isn't
going back to that apartment with him in it," Jaime squawked, not
listening when Alistair told him to be quiet.

She wasn't sure
if Dev heard Jaime, but at least he didn't return, so she assumed that he left.
It took long moments for Max and Alistair to calm Jaime down, but finally he
was induced to return to the party. She would have liked nothing more than to
remain where she was... in the bedroom. She didn't want to go home where Dev
might be and she didn't want to face Max's guests.

"It won't be
bad, Cle," Alistair whispered. "I really don't think too many people
realized what was happening. Max and I heard Jaime yelling when we went to the
kitchen to get beer for some of the men." He patted her on the back.
"It's nothing to worry about. Even the best of men get into an altercation
now and then."

"Yes. I suppose so," she
answered him, trying to smile. But not Dev Carstairs, cool business head, cold
solicitor's logic filling his brain. What was happening to Dev?

The rest of the party was an ordeal for
Cle but it seemed what Alistair said was true. The only ones who seemed
affected by Dev's absence were Ginna and Pam.

"I thought you came with Dev,
Cle," Ginna said, a sour look on her face.

"I did," Cle said, wondering if
her makeup were cracking on her face, it felt so stiff.

"Was it business?" Pam's face
quivered with curiosity.

"I
suppose," she hedged.

"I find him fascinating." Pam
sighed. "He said he would come to dinner one evening when he was
free." Her smile when she looked at her friend Ginna had a triumphant
lift.

"Nice for you," Cle observed,
moving away.

She was grateful
when the Nivenses suggested that they leave.

Once in the car, Diana turned to her.
"Alistair told me what happened. Would you like to spend the night at our
place, Cle? We have plenty of room."

Cle shrugged. "I'm not worried about
going home. Dev does not hit women. Believe it or not, he is a very nonviolent
man."

"Just a man who happens to be very
possessive of a certain woman," Alistair observed drily.

"Yes,"
Cle said biting her lip.

The drive took mere minutes it seemed to
Cle, for despite her assurances to the Nivenses, she was uneasy about going
into the apartment. Not because she was afraid that Dev would hurt her, she was
afraid that they would have another argument and she knew she wasn't up to
that.

Alistair saw her to the elevator,
checking to see that it was empty before he let her enter.

Cle commented
that he seemed to have all the canniness of a New Yorker as she shook his hand
goodnight.

"We have
some criminals here, too." He smiled at her, then he looked serious.
"Are you sure you're all right?"

She nodded and
stepped into the empty elevator. The hum of the motor seemed loud as she
climbed upward. She put her key into the door and it swung open before she
could return it.

Dev stood there,
a drink in his hand.

Cle could tell by
the glitter in his eyes that it wasn't his first drink.

"Yes, I've
been drinking, my lovely temptress, but I am by no means drunk." He took
another swallow and watched her as she walked by him.

"Drink
yourself into a stupor, if you wish." She turned to face him. "But
make sure you're sober enough to pack your things tomorrow. I want you to
leave."