by Sandra Brown
Reeves watched as Jordan frantically caught at Helmut’s sleeve. The blood thundered through his veins. He was barely able to restrain himself from grabbing Jordan and shaking her until she begged him to stop. When she was thoroughly contrite and pleading for merciful forgiveness, he wanted to kiss her until she knew without a doubt that she belonged to him. But she didn’t. She was leaning against Helmut with feminine helplessness. Never in his life had Reeves known such jealousy or anger.
He saw Helmut duck his head and place his ear near her mouth. Her lips barely moved against Helmut’s flesh, but Reeves remembered just how that felt. She whispered something to Helmut and then Reeves read the man’s lips as he answered, “Of course, my darling.”
Reeves had put his hand in his pocket to find another lens, but his hand had closed around one of the filters his camera often required. When he saw Helmut press his mouth against Jordan’s slightly parted lips, his fingers clenched reflexively. He was impervious to the breaking glass that sliced through three of his fingers.
It wasn’t until he withdrew his hand and saw the blood dripping from it that he hastened to grab a napkin off the buffet table to staunch the flow. Helmut was making another announcement, obviously at the request of his fiancée.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Jordan has asked, since you are all friends and there are no members of the press here tonight, that you refrain from notifying them of our upcoming marriage. Understandably, she doesn’t want it to be publicized until she can contact her parents in the United States.”
Reeves let the crowd stream around him as they exclaimed over the fairy-tale couple. He watched Jordan as she graciously received well-wishes. When a large, buxom, overjeweled matron drew her into a suffocating embrace, he met her eyes over the woman’s massive shoulders.
Damn her! Those blue-ringed gray eyes looked at him pleadingly. They were wide and apprehensive, compelling, and totally arresting. How dare she make a prize fool out of him and then look at him like that! He didn’t allow his frigid stare to warm. But his indifference was all for show. Even now he didn’t know which he would rather do, slap her hard across her lying mouth or fling her to the floor and make love to her with the wild hunger that made the pressure in his loins almost unbearable.
Jordan sank weakly onto a satin Louis XIV chair. She stared absently at the priceless marble floor under her silver sandal. One of the thin straps had cut a deep red groove into her little toe. She longed to ease off the shoe and walk around in her bare feet as she had done last night. Last night.
She directed her gaze across the floor to where maids and waiters were gathering up the refuse of the party. One was mopping up spilled champagne, while another was emptying ashes from crystal ashtrays into a copper butler’s helper. Subordinates were loading trays with empty plates and napkins.
Reeves and Helmut were standing near the buffet table chatting congenially. Reeves tossed a handful of peanuts into his mouth and then threw back his head and laughed uproariously at something Helmut had said.
How had she, Jordan Hadlock, managed to get herself into such an untenable predicament? If only she had asked Reeves what project had brought him to Lucerne. Wasn’t that a logical question? If only he had mentioned that he was working on a feature story about a Swiss entrepreneur. Why hadn’t the subject of his work come up? If only … If only …
What would have happened last night had Reeves known she was more or less “involved” with Helmut Eckherdt? Would that have mattered to him?
Helmut was at least a decade older than Reeves, was much wealthier, and commanded attention in an intimidating fashion. Yet, as Jordan observed the two men now, she saw that Reeves met Helmut as an equal. He wasn’t cowed by Helmut’s wealth or the power the industrialist wielded.
Both men were handsome. Helmut had the classic blond coloring that could have graced an Alpine travel poster. His body was hard and strong, due to the hours he spent in his exercise room and with his personal masseur.
Reeves’s body appeared to be naturally vital, requiring no maintenance. Each movement was graceful, casual, but indicative of subliminal power. He was blatantly American. His rugged good looks typified the pioneers of his heritage.
Jordan admired each of his gestures, thrilled to the rumbling sound of his laugh, the soft drawl of his voice. With a tenderness born of recollection, she watched his hands place the camera into its protective case, snap it shut, and then reach out to shake Helmut’s hand. The fingers of one hand, she noticed, were wrapped in a napkin. Were there blood stains on it?
Last night those capable hands had caressed her until she writhed under their transporting touch. They had been sensitive to her responses, unhurried in caresses that brought her the most pleasure. His lips had followed suit, roving her body avariciously. His greed had been gratified.
The love words he had whispered in her ear had been as thrilling as his lovemaking. Charles, her husband, had been a silent lover. Never would she have guessed that those precious, disjointed phrases could convey such meaningful messages to her body and spirit.
Last night his words had been full of praise. What was he thinking of her now as he and Helmut came toward her? She blinked back the tears that threatened at the corners of her eyes and tried to smile, but wasn’t sure it looked like more than an aborted effort.
“My dear, I’m sorry to have kept you waiting so long,” Helmut said. “I have some important matters that need to be seen to before business hours tomorrow. Reeves has offered to see you home in the launch and escort you to your door.”
CHAPTER 3
Jordan’s eyes flew to Reeves, then just as quickly back to Helmut. “That isn’t necessary. I can see myself home once we dock at the quay.”
“Absolutely not, Mrs. Hadlock,” Reeves said smoothly. “I’ve promised Helmut not to let you out of my sight until you are safely inside your front door.”
Jordan had a strong urge to slap him. He was deliberately mocking her. While Helmut was gathering up her wrap and evening purse from the cloak room, Reeves was leaning negligently against a marble column, raking her up and down with insolent eyes.
“Ready, Jordan?” Helmut asked politely.
“Yes.”
Helmut insisted on walking with them out the back of the château. Helmut’s estate was situated on a private island several acres large in the Lake of Lucerne. The house, if it could be so humbly termed, was white painted brick trimmed with dark brown woodwork and shutters. Despite its modest architecture, it was a showpiece. The interior was splendid. The grounds were a study of horticultural perfection.
He led Jordan and Reeves through the sculptured garden and down the stone steps to his private dock. A uniformed boatman helped them aboard a sleek craft after Helmut had kissed her good night. Helmut often hired motor taxis for an evening to shuttle his guests from his island in the lake to the shore. They were not luxurious launches, nor were they mediocre.
When she and Reeves were settled into deck chairs, the pilot started the inboard motor and they chugged away from the dock. Helmut waved them off until they disappeared into the darkness, the fine spray rising in their wake.
Jordan sat tensely in the low canvas chair, shivering slightly in the cold evening air. She snuggled deeper into her satin floor-length cape. She kept her eyes away from the man in the chair next to hers. The helmsman had his back to them as he navigated the smooth water, so they were all but alone.
Out of the darkness, she heard a scratching sound, then saw the flare of a match as it was put to the end of a cigarette. Reeves fanned out the match and conscientiously placed it in a pail of sand anchored to the glossy deck. Jordan caught the pungent aroma of the tobacco smoke as Reeves inhaled deeply on the cigarette and then exhaled slowly.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” she remarked quietly.
There was a long pause and she thought that either he hadn’t heard her or that he planned to ignore her. Finally he said, “I don’t. I quit years ago. I just started again.�
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“Oh.”
He shifted around in his chair until he was facing her. He stared hard at her with cold green eyes as he drew once more on the cigarette, coughed, cursed the cough, and flicked the cigarette through the air to die a sudden, hissing death in the lake. “Is that all you can say? ‘Oh’?”
“Reeves, please, I—”
“Spare me the theatrical explanations,” he cut in sharply. “None is necessary, I assure you. We shared a great roll in the hay during a thunderstorm. Very romantic. Very cozy. I enjoyed it. You enjoyed it. That’s all there was to it.” He sliced his hands through the air to emphasize that the subject was closed and she noticed again the napkin-wrapped fingers.
His words had pierced her to the core, but her attention was momentarily distracted by the bloodstained napkin. “What happened to your hand?” she asked.
“What?” His agitation was apparent. Every muscle in his body was pulled taut and strained against the restriction of his clothing. “What?” he repeated more heatedly, as though she hadn’t responded in the way he thought she should have.
“What happened to your hand?”
He looked at her in angry bewilderment and then down at his hand as if seeing it for the first time. “Oh, I…uh…cut it. It’s fine.”
“It’s bleeding.”
“Not anymore.”
“Are you sure? Maybe—”
“I said it’s fine.”
“Let me see—”
“Will you forget my damned hand!” he roared. He stood up and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his tuxedo trousers, walking to the rail of the boat and leaning against it. She could tell by the heaving of his shoulders that he was almost gasping for air. Up until now she hadn’t realized the extent of his fury.
He stood at the rail a long time, thumping his fists against the polished wood, looking out over the water and staring at the lights of Lucerne while they loomed larger on the horizon as the boat drew closer to the city. Jordan stared at his back and remained quiet. She longed to tell him about her relationship with Helmut, but his frame of mind wasn’t conducive to calm explanations. She’d let him vent his temper, then she would try to explain.
When he spun around and faced her, she jumped. “It’s not that I have scruples about sleeping with another man’s fiancée,” he sneered. “It’s just that you lied to me. I despise mendacity, Jordan.”
“I didn’t—”
“What would Helmut think if he knew about last night? Hm? Would your diamond have been just a tiny bit smaller? Or does he know? Maybe you accommodate him so well that he’s willing to overlook your occasional indiscretions. Maybe he shares you with his friends.”
“Shut up!” she shouted as she flew out of the chair and almost lost her balance as she stumbled across the windy deck. “It isn’t like that. I was going to tell you about Helmut this morning, but you had split, hadn’t you? When I woke up and saw you were gone, I couldn’t decide if you were an incredibly vivid dream or a nightmare. I had slept with a tender, sensitive man who turned out to be a cad who sneaked out at first light. A one-night stand? Is that what all the boys in the locker room refer to me as?”
Tears now blurred her eyes and she swiped at them angrily. She hadn’t wanted him to know how devastated she had been when she awoke long after the sun was up to find him gone without a trace. Had the mattress not borne the imprint of his body, had not the spicy fragrance of his cologne still clung to the linens, she might have thought he had been a figment.
But the most evident traces of his existence were on her body. Her lips were slightly bruised and chafed from the ardency of his kisses. Her breasts tingled with remembrances of his caresses. If she concentrated, she could accurately recall the sensation of having him full and deep inside her, imagine it still. No. He had been all too real.
“I came back this afternoon, but you had conveniently deserted the premises,” he fired back at her. “Were you in there all the time while I knocked on your door like some frustrated Romeo?”
Yes, she had been. By midafternoon, ashamed and distraught over what had happened, she had closed the shop and gone upstairs to lie down. She hadn’t slept much the night before. Helmut had called her to tell her he would have one of his servants pick her up and escort her through the alleys of the old town to the quay, where a motor launch would be waiting for her. She was to bring her clothes for the reception with her and change at the château, where Helmut kept a suite available for her use.
She had only hung up the telephone when she heard the knocking on her door downstairs. Surreptitiously she peered through the closed shutters of her bedroom window down into the street. Her heart lurched when she saw the sun shining on Reeves’s hair. He tried the locked door knob again a bit impatiently, then knocked harder. He even called her name and glanced up toward the window. She jumped back in time for him not to see her.
Why hadn’t she gone down and opened the door? What had made her stand there, petrified of seeing him again? Shame? Embarrassment? Maybe in the light of day he wouldn’t find her so attractive. Or maybe he wouldn’t be nearly so appealing to her. She dashed that thought. He was the most attractive man she had ever seen, by candlelight or sunlight. What had kept her from going down and flinging the door open wide and throwing herself into his arms?
Fear.
For the past few years she had lived by her own devices, learning from her own mistakes, celebrating her own accomplishments. She had kept herself insulated from exterior intervention. She had once placed her life in a man’s hands and it had ended disastrously. When she had finally left Charles, she had pledged never again to entrust her life to another human being. Charles’s untimely death had irrevocably prevented her from returning to an unhappy marriage, but she had never again allowed herself to become attached to a man to the point of dependence.
For months Helmut had pursued her, but caution had kept her from totally accepting his affection. That same caution had held her back from charging down the stairs that afternoon to embrace Reeves with all the happiness that welled up inside her at the mere sight of him.
My God! She had slept with this man. For the span of a brief few hours her life had been in his hands. All control, subconsciously, had been relinquished to him. If that wasn’t courting danger, she didn’t know what was. So, as she stood there watching him take a note pad out of his pocket, scribble a hasty message, and slip it into her mail slot, she determined that she would never see him again.
After he left, she had raced down the stairs, retrieved the note, and held it with shaky fingers as she read:
Sweet (sweeter, sweetest) Jordan,
Forgive me for ducking out without saying good-bye, but you were sleeping so soundly I didn’t have the heart to wake you. (Confession: I peeked under the blanket. Beautiful.) I wanted to check into a room (at the Europa, incidentally) and clean up before presenting myself at your door again. Unfortunately, you have ill-chosen this time to run an errand. I’ll be busy the early part of the evening (business), but if you will keep a light burning, I’ll be by later. (Memories of last night will keep me burning.) Until then…
Reeves
Her recent resolve not to see him again evaporated like smoke and vanished into the atmosphere. Somehow she would live through one of Helmut’s “small, intimate cocktail parties” for a “few close friends.” After a reasonable period of time, she would plead a headache and rush home to wait for Reeves. He would ask her if she’d been out. She would tell him about Helmut, but make it clear there was no commitment on her part. He would say that he was glad of that and that he understood. He would take her in his arms. Kiss her.
The best-laid plans of mice and men…
“Make it good, Jordan.” His snarling words snapped her out of the past and into the present. Her dazed eyes focused on him. The wind was whipping his hair into a wild disarray that, combined with the feral gleam in his eyes, made him appear diabolical.
Obviously he thought she was contri
ving some story about her absence from the shop that afternoon. She answered truthfully. “Yes, I was there, Reeves.” He seemed surprised by her answer and the harsh lines around his mouth softened, but slightly. “At the time, I didn’t think we should see each other again.”
“Oh, I agree,” he said. “It can get sticky when one is marrying one of the world’s richest men and takes a lover at the same time. People talk, you know.”
“No!” She stamped her foot in frustration. “I didn’t know that Helmut was going to announce our engagement tonight.”
“But you were unofficially engaged?”
“No. Well, not exactly…he…”
“Yes?” he cooed, and folded his arms across his chest in an arrogant stance that was most irritating.
She licked her lips and tried to brush back the strands of hair that were whirling around her face. “Be reasonable, Reeves. Can’t you see that I’m not part of that?” she demanded, vaguely gesturing toward the château they had just left.
“But you will be soon. Quite an accomplishment for a shopkeeper from Iowa.”
She ignored the sarcastic barb and went on. “Helmut came into my shop one day to buy a newspaper. We chatted. He was charming, flirtatious. I thought nothing of it. But that evening, just as I was closing, he came back in and invited me out for coffee.”
“Did you know who he was?” he asked incisively.
“I thought I had seen…” she hedged. Then she looked up into the piercing eyes and knew it would be useless to lie, though he would take the truth in the wrong way. “Yes,” she said. “I knew who he was.”
“Uh-huh.”
Some force stronger than her anger kept her from slapping that knowing smirk off his mouth. She swallowed her rage and continued levelly. “For several consecutive days he came into the shop and we talked. Then he invited me to dinner. I went. We began to see each other more often until…”
