Chameleon

by Courtney Henke

  Chameleon

  By

  Courtney Henke

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Don't miss any of our six romances this month

  #336 TEMPERATURES RISING

  by Sandra Brown

  #337 DESPERATE MEASURES

  by Linda Cajio

  #338 The Cherokee Trilogy

  TEMPTING THE WOLF

  by Deborah Smith

  #339 A SCENT OF ROSES

  by Judy Gill

  #340 CHAMELEON

  by Courtney Henke

  #341 WHITE HEAT

  by Helen Mittermeyer

  "Truce?" Max's voice came from behind the door. A white rose poked through the opening.

  Emma was so shocked she couldn't answer.

  "I didn't have a white flag. Will this do?" When she didn't answer, he added, "I'm sorry."

  "I'm sorry, too," she whispered at the same time.

  He moved to her and took her in his arms, surrounding her with warmth, and comfort, and a protectiveness that surprised her. "Emma, I didn't stop to try and understand what you were feeling. I could only think how opposite we are. I didn't want to see the similarities. Pride is something I can understand. Believe me, I do."

  Silence followed his admission. Then, "Why are you telling me this?" Emma asked.

  "I need your understanding, Emma. You make me see something in myself I've never seen before. And I don't like myself very much."

  "I like you," she whispered.

  Her breath warmed his cheek, and he suddenly realized her arms had traveled around his waist. Her body pressed against his, her scent wreathed him with sensual awareness. His fingers slid into her hair while his thumbs stroked the contours of her lips. He felt the moment her breathing changed, felt the sharp thud of her heartbeat that echoed his own.

  Their lips brushed in a promise of ecstasy that sent him reeling…

  WHAT ARE LOVESWEPT ROMANCES?

  They are stories of true romance and touching emotion. We believe those two very important ingredients are constants in our highly sensual and very believable stories in the LOVESWEPT line. Our goal is to give you, the reader, stories of consistently high quality that may sometimes make you laugh, sometimes make you cry, but are always fresh and creative and contain many delightful surprises within their pages.

  Most romance fans read an enormous number of books. Those they truly love, they keep. Others may be traded with friends and soon forgotten. We hope that each LOVESWEPT romance will be a treasure—a "keeper." We will always try to publish

  LOVE STORIES YOU'LL NEVER FORGET BY AUTHORS YOU'LL ALWAYS REMEMBER

  The Editors

  CHAMELEON

  A Bantam Book / July 1989

  Copyright © 1989 by Courtney Henke.

  ISBN 0-553-22015-2

  To Kathy, for letting me see the world through another set of eyes.

  And to Tuesday nights. Thanks for everything.

  One

  Shoving wet brown hair from her forehead, Emma peered through the azaleas at Mr. Morgan's front steps, which appeared fuzzy in the waves of heat that rose from the adjacent driveway. Her cramped legs trembled from sustained crouching, but her patience, though sorely stretched, had suffered worse. Her mission was too important to let a little agony deter her. She had to leave St. Louis in less than eighteen hours, and she refused to slink home in defeat.

  The setting sun threw shadows over the steps and she irritably shooed a bumblebee away from her ear as she strained toward a sound she sincerely hoped wasn't in her imagination. The lock rattled again, and Martha, Mr. Morgan's blue-haired secretary, exited his stately antebellum refuge. Emma's gray eyes narrowed on the woman she'd followed like a bloodhound, a rebel battle cry building in her throat. But she swallowed it, knowing she couldn't scare the support hose off the poor woman. At least, not yet.

  Not until after she'd gotten inside the house.

  Martha closed the door, then paused, a grimace of exasperation folding her already wrinkled features. Emma stiffened and ducked lower into the shrub, but Martha made no move toward her. Instead, she dug in her voluminous handbag, withdrew a key, unlocked the door, and stuck her head inside.

  "Mr. Morgan!" she called. "Don't forget to call for the tickets to the charity ball!"

  Emma thought she heard a sarcastic masculine voice yell "Thank you, Mother Martha!"

  Martha chuckled and withdrew, closing the door behind her. The silver Cadillac Emma had followed earlier purred up the curved driveway. Martha stepped down to meet it. As her fingers touched the door handle, she frowned, as if sensing her audience, and darted a suspicious glance around the yard.

  Emma froze and instinctively concentrated on the green of the leaves around her, feeling herself flow into its essence. Martha's gaze swept over her without pause. After a moment the woman shrugged and pulled open the car door, greeting the driver and obviously eager to answer some inaudible question. "No. Benno. If he'd let me help, it wouldn't be so hard on him. But in spite of his—"

  To Emma's frustration, the rest of the provocative sentence was cut off by the slamming of the door. The limousine immediately rolled down into the street, taking Maxwell Morgan's guardian dragon away.

  Now what, wondered Emma. She absently swatted a whining mosquito and mentally consigned the tax man to a burning pit for getting her into this situation in the first place. She threw Morgan in, too, for surrounding himself with overprotective employees.

  Sighing, she peeled her blouse away from her lithe form. She had no right to blame anyone, especially the owner of Daniels Cosmetics, Maxwell Morgan. He hadn't even offered to buy her mother's fragrance, he'd merely sent them the least offensive rejection. It had been her bright idea to approach him personally without an appointment, her belief in a perfume that no corporate executive had given a chance. While the rest of her family stood arguing about what to do, Emma, as usual, had slipped away to do it.

  Unconsciously she lifted her chin, sending coffee-color locks swinging around her shoulders. She would succeed, as she always did, because she had to. Her eyes zeroed in on the front door. Come hell or high water, she'd get in to see Maxwell Morgan, she vowed as she stood on wobbly legs.

  Something snagged her panty hose, and she felt the tiny caress of a run as she made her way through the shrubbery, pulling her portfolio after her. She stumbled up the steps, and her ankle twisted beneath her. Wincing at both her nasty luck and a knife of pain, she lifted her foot. Her ankle burned when she touched it, but, when tested, it held her weight. With almost everything else going wrong, she was grateful she could still walk. But she would have to carry her shoes for a while, she decided as she kicked them off.

  She raised her arm and knocked once on the door. For the first time in weeks the hard lines of stress disappeared, and her oval face smoothed into serene wonder as the door miraculously opened a few inches at the force of her knock. Emma couldn't believe her good luck. Apparently Martha hadn't pulled the door shut tightly enough to lock it.

  Her confidence returned. She plucked azalea leaves from her hair, brushed a smudge of dirt from her suit jacket, and squared her shoulders. In her experience, people believed exactly what they saw. And Mr. Morgan would see such cool competence that he would buy with no reservations.

  She gripped her briefcase and whispered the opening line that would hopefully pique his interest. "I'm here to offer you the deal of a lifetime. I'm here to offer you the deal…"

  Chanting the words like a talisman, she lim
ped inside quietly and glanced from one twilight-dim room to another. Only the drone of an air conditioner broke the almost stifling silence. Where was the man she had been chasing all day, she wondered as she peeked into the kitchen.

  "What shall we do tonight, girl?"

  Emma froze at the low, husky voice, panic sending her heartbeat racing. She darted guilty looks around the adjoining room, a casual living area, but saw nothing but shadows.

  "Would you like me to read another chapter of that hot best seller to you? Or maybe we could go for a moonlight swim later. Would you like that?"

  She gulped and caught herself before she answered yes. It was a voice any woman in her right mind would dream of hearing late at night, whispering endearments in the dark. But when a strange, moaning sigh answered him, floating through an arched doorway to her right, Emma's palms began to sweat. If Mr. Morgan had female company, he would hardly want to listen to a sales pitch. Groaning inwardly, knowing she had no options left, Emma approached the doorway. This was it, she told herself. This was the biggest gamble of her life. She couldn't stop herself from crossing her fingers behind her as she paced silently to the threshold.

  The library was dim, and she paused, letting her eyes adjust. The faint odor of leather and mildew told her the owner had expensive tastes, but she had no time to examine the room. She saw only one occupant, and every other thought flew out of her mind.

  He lounged in a big leather chair, his head back, half-lidded eyes focused somewhere on the ceiling. His hair was pure gold, all a-tumble, with one wayward lock hanging over his eyebrows. He wore no shirt, and the setting sun sent intriguing shadows dancing over a wide chest littered with darker hair. Any of the seven other women in her family would have drooled over the masculine feast before them, but Emma found herself staring at his face.

  She'd seen only one picture of him in her research, in the fiscal report just after he'd inherited Daniels Cosmetics six years earlier. That quietly determined twenty-eight-year-old had not changed into the hardened misanthropic, executive she'd expected to be cynical beyond his years. He'd metamorphosed into a man who would laugh in the face of demons! Humor lurked in the corners of his mouth, as if the entire world silently amused him, and that disturbed her because she could not figure out why this man surrounded himself with a battalion of staff members intent on keeping people away. To a woman who'd lived most of her life staring yearningly at the horizon, dreaming of faraway .places, he was impossible to understand. Why would he hide himself away? What secrets did he conceal?

  He frowned suddenly, as if in pain, and lifted a hand to rub a whitened, jagged scar just under his hairline. His fist clenched on the desk. Something inside Emma twisted, and she felt the most amazing urge to wrap him in her arms. But she couldn't, could she? She was an intruder, and she was uncomfortably aware that she had witnessed a man with his guard down. Guilt flooded her, and her honor demanded that she go out and give warning before she entered again.

  As she began to inch away, a low growl rumbled from somewhere in the room. Instantly the man stiffened.

  "What is it, Dixie?"

  A dog! she thought. She wouldn't have time to ease into this now, and she tensed, knowing she already had one strike against her. If only she hadn't come up with this harebrained idea!

  His head turned as he crooned to the unseen Dixie.

  Instinct took over. Emma melted into the shadows. His gaze swept the room, but there was no sign that he acknowledged her presence, and she easily swallowed her panic. Those eyes! The light was failing, but she could see their amber glint, several shades darker than his hair. Maxwell Morgan was one fine specimen of a man!

  "It's okay, girl. Another mouse, huh?"

  Emma nearly sighed in relief. She had a second chance. This time she wouldn't blow it by sneaking into his—

  With a suddenness that startled her, Maxwell Morgan threw his head up, his nostrils flaring like a great golden palomino testing the wind.

  Think fast. Emma.

  What was that incredible scent, Max wondered in awe. Fresh, clean, faintly sweet, it transported him to a high cliff swept by sea breezes that carried the faraway fragrance of island flowers. A natural blend, he knew. No chemicals could do it justice. Primary… jasmine, he thought. Secondary… sweet flag? Tertiary…oh. hell. This was something to be experienced, not analyzed. He detected the subtle aroma of budding flowers and spring grasses, honeyed somehow. Yet it held the sultry quality of some unknown hothouse flower.

  He frowned, wondering from where in heaven that scent had drifted. With his company's reputation for developing unusual perfumes, they could make millions. The scent would hit the market like wildfire, but—

  The hair on the nape of his neck stood rigid.

  Dixie's aging sense of hearing hadn't been wrong. There was someone in the room, someone other than Benno or Martha. But Dixie obviously hadn't seen anyone yet, which gave him a possible clue to the intruder's whereabouts.

  "Step out of the shadows, whoever you are!" he called in his most commanding tone. "Or I let the dog loose!"

  "No, please, Mr. Morgan! I'm not a thief! I'm here to—to offer you the life of a dealtime!"

  Silence hung quivering in the room after the panicky pronouncement, and Max didn't know whether to bellow, call the police, or laugh. Before he could decide, the female voice went on. "Damnation! My tongue wrapped around my eyeteeth, and I couldn't see what I was sayin'."

  "That sounds painful," he couldn't help replying.

  "Lord, you have a sense of humor." She chuckled, a low, husky sound that sent shivers up his spine. "Mr. Morgan, you're not going to believe this, but I'm not in the habit of housebreaking. It's just—I've been followin' your people around all day, hoping to catch you. I'm fryin' in this suit, I'm tired, and I feel like a royal ass for entering your lovely home uninvited." She drew a deep breath. "If I walk away and come in as if you'd never seen me, I promise to walk the straight and narrow from now on, all right?"

  Max gaped, his head spinning as he tried to sort through her request.

  "Thank you," she said on a sigh, then thudded away in an off-rhythm pace, muttering to herself. "He's got you so flustered, you don't know which end is up anymore. You can't even get the words out of your mouth. Bloody stupid twit, look at yourself! Better strip off these panty hose before…"

  Her voice trailed off in the distance, and Max shook his head sharply. "What in the hell was that?" he murmured.

  Dixie licked his hand and curled up at his feet.

  Either that incredibly sensuous female had been his imagination, or else Dixie sensed the whirlwind had been no threat.

  To his surprise, he preferred to trust Dixie's instincts. His curiosity was stronger than any fear he might have felt. The woman had the audacity of a hurricane, whoever she was, and she appealed to his sense of the absurd. Anyone with that much brass deserved something for her effort.

  And her voice intrigued him in spite of himself. Her smooth southern drawl held a delightful trace of a British accent, which had immediately captured his interest. She sounded like a wanton and smelled like a summer breeze. But what did she want?

  Had she said something about panty hose?

  Every square inch of his body tightened with the erotic image she'd evoked. He gulped, fighting his disconcerting arousal. He couldn't remember anyone ever having this sudden effect on him, and he wasn't sure he liked it. She'd walked right into his house, for heaven's sake! And who knew how long she'd stood there watching him!

  Resentment stirred. This was his home, his sanctuary, and she had assumed total control of the situation. That was something he could not allow.

  A whisper of sound, a whiff of her delectable fragrance, alerted him to her return. "Who are you?" he asked without preamble.

  "My name is Emma Machlen, and I'm here to offer you the deal of a lifetime."

  Max caught the reluctant, admiring grin before it could reach his mouth. Gone was the flustered southern dynamo of a moment b
efore. In her place stood a calm saleswoman, radiating confidence. Unfortunately he recognized her name. "Machlen? From Organic Island Industries? Your company wrote to me a month ago about a scent made with some grass I'd never heard of?"

  "Yes."

  He heard a trace of wariness in her tone and felt honestly sorry that he'd have to burst her bubble. "As I told you in my letter, I don't buy fragrances developed outside my own company."

  "All I want is five minutes of your time to change your mind."

  "You won't."

  She sighed. "Mr. Morgan, I'm truly sorry that I approached you in this manner, all grimy and everything, but all I'm asking for is a chance."

  He frowned, recalling her comment about dirt. She really thought her looks would affect his decision! That tickled his wry sense of humor and gave him the edge his mind needed. "Ms. Machlen, I can honestly say that I didn't notice your appearance."

  "Very gallant, sir. I knew you were a gentleman from your letter."

  "Don't depend on it," he muttered, and steepled his fingers underneath his chin. She was growing more and more fascinating every moment. "How did you get in?"

  "Through the front door. You really should have that latch checked," she said sternly. "Anything could crawl in."

  "No," he scoffed. "By any chance, are you wearing the fragrance you're offering?"

  "Yes," she said in relief.

  He rubbed his lower lip with the side of his finger. The fact that the scent was made from rare grass had quelled his initial excitement but hadn't killed his interest. Several things could complicate mass production, he realized, least of which was whether or not she wore a duplicatable formula or a fluke used only to sell him. One question immediately rose to mind. "Why doesn't your company produce It?"