Low Country Liar

by Janet Dailey

  Blinking in confusion, Lisa looked down at her hand, paling at the sight of the golden wedding band on her third finger. She had forgotten to switch rings. Quickly she tore it from her finger.

  "It's a friendship ring the girls gave me this morning," she lied desperately. "It was too small to wear on my right hand."

  She couldn't tell whether Slade believed her or not. The gold ring seemed to burn a circle in the tightly closed ball of her right hand, but she was afraid to put it in her bag for fear Slade would glimpse the red wig hidden inside.

  "I'll take it to the jewelers for you and have it made larger," Slade offered, watching her closely.

  "That isn't necessary," Lisa refused, and hurriedly slipped the gold band into her jacket pocket. "I can do it."

  "Hurry and put the ring on her finger, Slade," Mitzi urged. "I want to see it."

  Her hand was shaking badly as he slipped the diamond ring on her third finger. It never occurred to her to refuse it. When Slade smiled at her, all masculine and virile, Lisa knew that she loved him no matter what.

  "Do you like it?" he asked.

  "It's beautiful," she smiled.

  "It's stunning, is the word!" Mitzi exclaimed, reaching for Lisa's hand to examine the ring more closely. "The two of you have made me the happiest woman in the world. I should have known something like this would happen when the two of you struck sparks off each other the instant you met."

  "Didn't I tell you that's what she'd say?" Slade mocked.

  "When is the wedding to be?" Mitzi wanted to know, still admiring the ring.

  "Soon," Slade promised with typical self-assurance. "Very soon."

  A toast was proposed by Mitzi, followed by more talk before they gave their luncheon order to the waiter. But all the while Lisa was plagued by stirrings of unease.

  There was nothing in Slade's attitude to make her feel that way. She still received the touch of his hand and the warm caress of his gaze. The problem seemed to be solely her own — a guilty conscience.

  After the meal was served and the dishes subsequently cleared, neither Mitzi not Slade seemed inclined to bring the luncheon gathering to an end. Lisa was intensely conscious of the passing time, aware that the minute hand of her watch was inching near the one-thirty mark. And Ann Eldridge was supposed to have only an hour lunch break.

  Twice she tried to make excuses to leave, but each time Slade used his persuasive charm to see that she didn't. Being newly engaged, Lisa could hardly reveal how eager — how anxious she was to leave, and she finally had to wait for one of them to make the first move.

  Seconds ticked rapidly away before Slade glanced absently at his watch and Sighed. "It's nearly two o'clock. As much as I hate to leave you, I have to get back to the office."

  "I understand," Lisa assured him, smiling with relief.

  Rising from his chair, he rested a hand on her shoulder, saying his goodbyes first to Mitzi before glancing down at Lisa. "I'll see you at seven tonight if not before."

  "Yes," she agreed, lifting her head to receive the brushing kiss from his mouth.

  There was no hope of beating him back to the office, not when she had to change into Ann Eldridge somewhere along the way. So she lingered for several more minutes with Mitzi before resorting to the much-used pretext of meeting Susan and Peg as the reason she couldn't return with Mitzi to her home.

  "Run along," her aunt insisted, not raising a single objection to the news that she would again be denied Lisa's company. "I know how eager you must be to show off your engagement ring to your friends."

  "Yes, I am," Lisa said, agreeing with the excuse and hurrying from the restaurant.

  Chapter Nine

  THIS TIME LISA did not overlook any minor details like rings when making her hasty change of identity. She was secure in that knowledge when she, Ann Eldridge, walked into the office. But that didn't stop her from quailing under the piercing look from Slade.

  "Do you realize it's past two o'clock?" He stood beside her desk, tall and imposing.

  "I'm sorry. I know I was late, but I didn't realize it was that time already." She apologized profusely, and began the speech she had been rehearsing since leaving the restaurant. "My dentist was running late in his appointments. Then, just as I got in the chair, an emergency came in — some little boy had his permanent front teeth knocked out and the doctor tried to save them. I shouldn't have waited, but they didn't think it would take very long. It turned out that it did and I'm late. If you want me to, I'll stay on later tonight to make up for it."

  "There's no need for that." Slade appeared to relent slightly after hearing her explanation.

  To reach her desk, Lisa had to walk around him. She did so reluctantly, depositing her handbag in a lower desk drawer before sitting in her chair and attempting to assume a professional posture.

  "I'm glad you're so understanding about this." She smiled nervously. "When you gave me permission to leave early, I never intended to take advantage of you this way."

  "I'm sure you didn't," he responded smoothly. "I came back only a few minutes ago myself."

  Lisa felt the tension mounting to a screaming pitch. "Did you?" The brightness of her reply was forced. "It seems we both overextended our lunch hour."

  "And both of us had cause. You, with your troubles at the dentist, and me," Slade paused, "I became engaged this noon."

  "Really? Congratulations! That's wonderful news, Mr. Blackwell." She had never felt so small in all her life.

  "Yes, it is." A complacent smile curved his mouth.

  Having made this announcement, Lisa expected him to leave her, but he didn't. He continued to stand beside her desk. Her poise would splinter soon if he didn't go.

  "Was there anything else, Mr. Blackwell?" She tried to prod him into leaving "Will you be taking the rest of the afternoon off? Or did you want something?"

  "There is one thing —" Slade paused.

  "I'd like to buy my fiancée an engagement present. I wondered if you would have a suggestion."

  "I have never met her so I really wouldn't know what to suggest." She could hear the breathless quality to her voice that revealed her inner agitation.

  "What did your husband buy you for an engagement gift? Maybe that will help me," he said.

  Lisa swallowed nervously. "He … he didn't have enough money to buy me anything. He could barely afford the ring when we got engaged." She hated all these lies. They were tearing at her soul.

  "You said your husband was in construction, didn't you?" Slade seemed to tower above the desk. Despite his seeming interest in the personal life of Ann Eldridge, Lisa felt increasingly uneasy.

  "Yes, that's right," she murmured and began moving papers around on her desk to give her trembling hands something to do.

  "What company does he work for? I'm familiar with a great many of them here in Charleston," he said.

  Lisa wouldn't have been surprised if he knew every single one — which made it impossible for her to make up a fictitious company.

  "I've forgotten what firm it is," she pleaded ignorance.

  "You've forgotten." His gaze narrowed. "What would you do if there was an emergency and you had to get in touch with him? How can you explain forgetting the name of your husband's company?"

  "I don't know." Lisa faked an indifferent shrug and struggled to bluff her way out of the corner. "If it's a dire emergency, I'll find a way to contact him."

  "Is that how you explain it?"

  "Yes." Her voice sounded small.

  "Then I would like you to explain what this —" he reached down and opened her desk drawer, revealing Mitzi's file folder lying on top of the other papers "— is doing in your drawer."

  "That folder?" Her throat was dry and her heart pumped wildly in fear. "It was among the stack of papers you gave me to be filed. I didn't get that one filed away before I left this noon, so I put it in my drawer rather than leave it lying out."

  "I see." he murmured.

  "I'll, er, file now," Lisa s
tammered. Her hand was shaking as she picked up the folder and walked to the filing cabinets.

  Slade followed leisurely to watch, his continued presence in the room scraping her nerves raw. She didn't know how much more she could stand.

  "Did you have time to eat anything for lunch?" he asked unexpectedly as she went through the file drawer to find the proper place to put Mitzi's folder.

  "No, I didn't," Lisa lied, "but that's all right. I should watch my weight anyway." She immediately regretted the allusion to her shape as his gaze skimmed her figure, setting off sensual shockwaves that vibrated her taut nerve ends.

  "I've been meaning to compliment you on the outfit you're wearing. It's very attractive." Slade lightly traced the pointed collar of her jacket, his touch paralyzing her as if it was lethal. "It would be more striking in green, though, to match your eyes."

  When he began to run his finger down the buttoned front of the jacket, Lisa regained control of her muscles and flinched from his touch.

  "Please, Mr. Blackwell, don't do that." Her protest was breathy with alarm.

  "'Don't do that, Mr. Blackwell!'" His angrily sarcastic mimicry of her protest startled Lisa.

  The words were still ringing in her ears when her arm was caught and she was yanked roughly against him. The breath was knocked from her lungs by the unyielding contact with his muscular chest.

  She never had a chance to regain it as her lips were crushed against her teeth by the brutal assault of his mouth. For unending moments Slade plundered the softness of her lips, savagely ravishing them until she had not the strength to resist if she had found the will.

  When he was finished wreaking his anger on her, he let her go. Lisa reeled backward, her hands seeking the support of the sturdy metal cabinets. But Slade wasn't quite through with her. He followed her, arms stretched against the cabinet on either side of her, trapping her there to face his proud fury.

  "What kind of a fool do you think I am?" he snarled.

  "Slade, let me explain." Her heart was hammering in her throat and she could hardly breathe. Her legs were still shaking from the raging anger in his kiss.

  "Just because I didn't see through your charade in the beginning, did you think I'd go right on being blind, Lisa?" A muscle twitched convulsively in his jaw, indicating how very tenuous his hold was on his temper.

  "You don't understand," she protested.

  "I understand very well. When I saw that wedding band on your finger today, all the pieces began to fall into place." His voice was flat and hard, riddled with contempt and disgust.

  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 wore 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.