The Cutting Edge

by Linda Howard

  As if on cue, the doorbell rang. This time she didn’t jump, though the sound jangled her nerves. Evan quickly began gathering papers up as Brett went to the door.

  Sammy and Billie stood in the doorway, gaping at Brett; then Billie shot to Tessa’s defense. “What are you doing here? Get out! How dare you badger her like this!”

  “Settle down,” Brett advised her coolly. “We’re not badgering her. We’re trying to find out who set her up.”

  “What do you mean, set her up?” Billie shot back.

  “Just what I said. Well, come on in. This is turning out to be quite a party.” He opened the door wider, and Evan came into their view.

  “What is this?” Billie asked suspiciously.

  Brett jerked his head sideways in silent command, and they both came cautiously into the apartment. “To begin with, we dropped the charges against Tessa yesterday.”

  Sammy’s face brightened, but Billie said, “Is that supposed to make everything all right? You think you can just waltz back in here and take up where you left off?”

  A flush pinkened Tessa’s wan face, and Brett said grimly, “I should be so lucky. No, that isn’t what I think. But someone deliberately made it look as if Tessa was embezzling, and I want to know who it was.”

  “Billie, please,” Tessa interjected, intending to ask Billie to halt the hostilities, but she didn’t get any further.

  “What’s wrong with your voice? You sound like a frog.”

  “She strained her throat,” Brett said, then deftly changed the subject. “Wallace, I understand that you can trace the account if you have either the name or the number.”

  Sammy eyed him cautiously. “That’s right.”

  “How long would it take you?”

  When it came to computers, Sammy lost all his shyness. He was a master in the field, and his confidence showed. “That depends. If I used the master computer at work, a couple of nights. Maybe less.”

  “How about if that’s all you work on tomorrow?”

  “You mean, on company time?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  “I can give you the data on the original entry tomorrow.”

  “Do it,” Brett said.

  “What’s the account name?”

  “Conway, Inc.,” Brett said softly, sensing the way Tessa stiffened. “They used her name, all the way through.”

  “No wonder you thought she did it!” Billie muttered.

  Sammy was frowning. “No, that’s wrong. It isn’t Conway, is it?”

  “There’s another account, under the name of Conmay, Inc. Only one letter is different, and that letter is so similar that, with a dot matrix printer and a bad ribbon, which is the common state of affairs, it’s almost impossible to distinguish between the two when you’re checking down a list.”

  Hearing how she’d been set up almost made Tessa ill. “Then my name was used to sign the checks written on the account that the company funds were deposited into… .” The evidence had been over-whelming, and all of it had pointed to her. It didn’t seem like a casual choice, but a deliberate effort to incriminate her specifically.

  Brett looked sharply at her. “That’s right.”

  “I’ll work with you tomorrow,” Evan said to Sammy. “With both of us on it, we can do it in half the time. Who knows, Brett and I may save our jobs yet.”

  Tessa froze momentarily, then turned and looked at Brett, a look that was long and very level. “Did you have the authority to drop the charges against me?” she asked quietly.

  Brett gave Evan a cutting glance. “I have the authority,” he drawled, daring Evan to say anything else.

  “Then let me put it another way: Did you have the authorization to drop the charges?”

  “Not exactly,” he said with a wolfish smile. He didn’t like her questions, but he wasn’t going to lie to her, not now. There was a lot of information he wouldn’t volunteer, but if she asked him a direct question, he was going to answer it honestly. “I took the responsibility for the decision.”

  “But you could be fired?”

  “It’s possible, but not likely. Mr. Carter and I have an agreement about things like this. When an on-the-spot decision is called for, I make it.”

  There were a lot of questions Tessa wanted to ask him about that, but not in front of everyone else. She simply added them to her list of things to ask him about when they were alone—and she had no doubt that they would be alone. When the others left, she knew that Brett would be staying.

  It wasn’t particularly gratifying to find that she was right, but once they were alone again, she turned to face him. She felt far more balanced now than she had in a week, and though she couldn’t help feeling grateful to him for taking care of her the day before, when she’d practically been a basket case, it was past time that she faced him. Putting it off wouldn’t lessen the hurt.

  “Now we talk,” she said.

  He nodded, a hint of satisfaction in his eyes, as if he’d found it difficult to restrain himself. “Yes, we do. You’ve managed to evade the question several times, darling, but now you’re going to tell me exactly what is wrong with your voice,” he said very softly.

  Their eyes met, and she saw the determination in his. She gave a wry smile. “I cried too much.”

  Something changed in his face, but before he could speak again, she drew a deep breath and said, “The next question is mine: Where are you staying, now that you’ve given up your hotel room?”

  His eyes moved over her face, and his voice was gentle but implacable when he said, “I’m staying here.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  TESSA PULLED HERSELF up very straight, her gaze unwavering. “I haven’t asked you to stay.”

  “I know,” he admitted dryly. “That’s why I had to invite myself.”

  As she stared at him, she realized that he was determined to stay, to wear down her resistance to him. He made her feel hunted, and desperation made her angry. “Damn it, Brett, it’s over!”

  “Not by a long shot. I’m not giving up, baby. I’m not going to let you go. What we have together is too good to just give up on.”

  “We never had anything together!” she said bitterly. “I had love, while you had your investigation. Now you have your guilt, and I…I just don’t want any part of it,” she finished in a dull tone.

  He flinched at the lash of her words. “Yes, I feel guilty! I should have trusted you, but I didn’t. When I saw your signature on those checks, I went crazy, because I thought you’d been using me as a hedge against being prosecuted!”

  “What a lovely opinion you have of me!” she flared, her small hands knotting into fists at her sides.

  Brett shoved his fingers through his thick hair, groping for an explanation. “I’m a loner, Tessa. I’m not used to trusting anyone, or to letting anyone get close to me. You got so close to me that you knocked me off balance. That’s not much of an excuse, but it’s the only one I have. I thought you were using me, and it hurt like hell. It hurt so much that I almost vomited. All I could think of was not to let you know that I was hurting. Damn it, I love you!” he said angrily.

  Tears stung her eyes. “Sure you do. You love me so much that you never faced me with the evidence. You didn’t even give me a chance to defend myself! Do you have any idea what it’s like to be arrested, to be booked and fingerprinted, how humiliating it is? I felt dirty! I tried to call you; I kept thinking that if I could just get in touch with you, everything would be all right, that you’d straighten it all out. Can you even begin to imagine how I felt when I learned that you had had me arrested?” Her voice became thickened and strained, almost soundless. “You don’t know what love is.”

  He cursed rawly. This was the first time in his life he’d ever told a woman that he loved her, and she didn’t believe him! The hell of it was that he could understand her reasoning. She must think that he was motivated by guilt, that he was taking care of her in an effort to assuage that guilt. And there was noth
ing he could say that would change her mind; there were no words that could ease her pain. Instead of being betrayed, he had betrayed her. By not trusting her, he had lost her trust, and he had hurt her so deeply that she might never recover from it. The thought was so unbearable that he rejected it completely; he would do anything in the world for her, except let her walk out of his life. He would do whatever he had to do to convince her that he loved her, to rekindle the love she felt for him. She was his, and if words weren’t enough to convince her of that, then he’d have to use more drastic measures.

  Watching him with bitter weariness, Tessa saw his face change, saw his eyes narrow with determination, as a subtle shift of expression hardened his features. Abruptly, he looked more dangerous than a crouching panther.

  Slowly he reached out and turned off the lamp. A pool of light spilled into the living room from the kitchen, falling across his face and illuminating half of it, while the other half was shadowed. Tessa caught her breath and instinctively moved back a step, but she couldn’t look away from him. She was caught, mesmerized by the burning sensuality of his face as he tugged the white cotton shirt out of his pants and slowly pulled it off over his head, then tossed it to the floor. His bronzed skin gleamed darkly, and the hair on his chest made an even darker shadow against his flesh. “If you won’t believe me,” he said in a rough whisper, “then I’ll have to show you.”

  Tessa took another backward step, her heart leaping high to lodge in her throat, making breathing difficult. Her eyes were huge and haunted as she stared at him. “What…what are you doing?”

  He was stalking her with slow, silent movements, his eyes never leaving her face. “You said that you loved me. Were you lying?”

  Whatever she had expected, it wasn’t to be questioned. The question demanded her attention, and she stared at him, distracted by the anger building in her. “No, I wasn’t lying! Did you think I’m a liar as well as a thief?”

  He ignored the last part of her response, moving still another step closer to her. “You were engaged twice before, but you didn’t make love with either of them, because you didn’t really love them. You love me, you went to bed with me, and you can’t forget what we have any more than I can. No matter what, you still love me, don’t you?”

  “Will a confession make you feel any better?” she asked raggedly, her body stiff with pain. “Yes, I love you, but I won’t waste my life on someone who doesn’t love me! I went to you; I wanted to tell you that I loved you, that I was innocent, but you never gave me the chance.”

  “I was going to pieces on the inside,” he rasped. “It nearly drove me crazy, thinking that you’d been using me. Damn it, Tessa, you know how that feels! You thought the same thing about me!”

  Her eyes were raw, burning with the hell inside her. “There’s a slight difference,” she said, flinging the words at him like stones. “I wasn’t trying to send you to prison!”

  “When I could think straight again, I knew that I couldn’t let you go to prison. Damn it, listen to me!” he growled, grabbing her arm as she turned away and pulling her back to face him. “When I called that meeting in the D.A.’s office, I still thought you were guilty, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was protecting you. There was no way I was going to let you go to prison.”

  Tessa pulled against the strength of his hands, but he held her effortlessly, his long fingers wrapped around her upper arms. “Let me go,” she choked, panic rising in her. She felt stifled by his size, his overwhelming masculinity, and her tenuous hold on her control was slipping. Deep inside her, an insidious need was undermining her resolve; even now, she wanted him, needed him. She needed his heat to ward off the arctic cold that surrounded her; she needed his strength, because she had none left. She was tired, defeated, and she couldn’t take much more. “Please,” she whimpered. “Let me go.”

  “No. Never.” He shook her lightly. “Tell me that you love me.”

  “Let me go!”

  Watching the way her lips trembled, Brett knew she was close to breaking. He had an agonized moment of indecision about the wisdom of pushing her, but it was his last desperate gamble; he had to break down the wall of icy remoteness she’d built between them, or he’d never be able to reach her again.

  “You love me,” he said roughly, holding her as she tried to jerk away from him. “I love you. Tell me that you love me. I want to hear it. Tell me!”

  Tessa was shaking wildly, staring up at him with desperate eyes. Love him? She ached for him. She felt as if she would die without him, but she’d learned, this past week, that a human being could be acutely miserable and still live, still function. She would give almost anything if she could turn back the clock and totally erase this past week. At least then she would still be living in her fool’s paradise. She wouldn’t know what it was like to feel the laughter die.

  “Tell me that you love me,” he insisted, shaking her again.

  The acid burning of tears in her eyes blurred his image, then the tears overflowed and began to roll slowly down her cheeks. “Why are you doing this to me?” she whispered. “Haven’t you hurt me enough?”

  He wouldn’t let up. “Tell me that you love me.”

  “I love you,” she said, defeated, giving him the words that he wanted, but the words were stones taken from the wall she’d built to protect herself, and the gap permitted all the forbidden emotions to come rushing in, battering at her, tearing her down. A sobbing gasp broke from her throat, signaling the end of her control. Her head dropped forward and she stood docilely in his grasp, her body shuddering with the force of her weeping. There was something different in her tears, an acceptance of the grief and pain that she’d been denying.

  A muscle twitched in Brett’s jaw, and he felt his own lips tremble for a moment before he controlled them. Slowly he released her arms and slid his hard hands down to curve around her waist. He pulled her against him so she could feel every line of his body.

  Her eyes blinded by tears, Tessa was nevertheless aware that his warm, bare chest was there for her to lay her head on; his powerfully muscled legs supported hers, his thighs taut and corded. He was holding her up, offering her his strength when she had none of her own. Yet she was afraid to depend on that strength, and she turned away from him, only to have him catch her and pull her back against him, and this time her head did fall back on his chest. “How can I trust you?” she wept, not noticing the irony that now their situations had been reversed, but he noticed, and winced.

  “In time, love. In time,” he breathed. “Just don’t throw it away. Give me another chance to show you how much I love you.” She was weak now, leaning on him, just as he’d wanted her to be. For now she was utterly defenseless, and he moved to fortify his newly gained position. He bent his head to nibble at her ear, then slid his mouth down the exposed arch of her neck, knowing how sensitive her skin was there. She shuddered and pressed herself against him, her hands reaching back to curve around his thighs and pull him forward, as if she could meld them together. He bit off a groan, sliding his palms up to cover both her breasts.

  She rolled her head against his shoulder, tears still rolling down her cheeks, because she wanted him so much. She was afraid to believe him, but she couldn’t pull away from him. She was so empty and cold and alone, and he was the warmth that would keep her from dying.

  He did groan aloud then, turning her in his arms and lifting her against his chest. “Don’t cry, darling. Please don’t cry,” he whispered as he carried her to bed. He had wanted her to break, but he hadn’t known it would hurt so much. All he wanted to do now was to make everything right in her world.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung, her face buried in the hollow between his face and shoulder. “I only cried once, right after I was arrested,” she gasped between sobs. “But now I can’t seem to stop. Oh, Brett, I was so scared!”

  “I know, darling, I know.” His face was tortured as he placed her on the bed and began undressing her. “I don’t ever
want to make you cry again.” It wasn’t easy, getting her clothes off while she clung to his neck, but he managed it. He wouldn’t have torn her arms loose for anything in the world. Then he struggled out of his pants and kicked them away, and got into bed with her.

  He just held her while she cried, and his own eyes burned. She was his woman, a part of him; it hurt him that she hurt.

  At last her sobs became little gasps, then ceased altogether, but still he held her and made no effort to make love to her. Tessa lay quietly in his arms, feeling the soft rasp of his hairy legs against her smooth ones, the hardness of his stomach and chest, the corded strength of his arms around her. She felt as if a momentous decision was forcing itself on her, and she wasn’t ready for it, but neither did she want to force an irrevocable break between them. She had thought the break was already there, and she had been in agony at losing him, yet now that another chance had been offered to her, she was afraid to take it. What if she were wrong again? She wanted his love, not his guilt, and if she ever found that he’d offered only a pale image instead of the reality of love, it would break her. Yet she couldn’t send him away, not now, when she was so empty and only he could fill her, bring her back to life.

  They lay together while he slowly stroked one hand up and down her slender back, the soothing movement lulling her into a drowsy sense of contentment. At least in this moment he was hers. He felt her relaxing against his body. “Better now?” he whispered into her hair.

  Her hand moved over his chest, her fingers sliding through the hair. “Yes,” she said sleepily. She didn’t think about what she said next; the words came out of her subconscious, out of an inborn need to reach out to the man she loved. “Brett…make love to me, please.”

  His entire body was suddenly taut, quivering with need, the electricity of his sensuality banishing her drowsiness. “Are you sure?”