Corporate Affair

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  Mutely she met his eyes, knowing he was at once aware of the self-disgust in her own bleak gaze.

  „Kalinda?“ he whispered pleadingly. „What’s wrong, sweetheart?“ His hands encircled her waist, holding her in place above him. „Stop looking at me like that I’m not going to hurt you.“

  „I… I know,“ she managed, struggling to bring her reeling senses back under control. „But I never meant… I didn’t mean to get involved like this again today. I don’t understand what you do to me, but it’s all wrong! We’re all wrong. We… we don’t belong together…“

  Painfully, she tried to separate herself from him, thrusting a hand through her hair to sweep it back from her face. She sat up with the greatest care, as if the movement was incredibly difficult His eyes never left hers and she saw dismay and a growing coolness begin to wipe out the passion that had looked out at her from the hazel depths.

  „Damn it to hell,“ he muttered, his hands still on her waist „It was Hutton’s name mat did it, wasn’t it?

  What a fool I am. You’d think a man would know when to keep his mouth shut!“

  In spite of the charged atmosphere, Kalinda knew a rueful spark of humor as she listened to him condemn his own stupidity. „I’m sorry, Rand. I should never have let things go this far. I honestly don’t know what got into me.“

  He regarded her with a narrowed, seething glance. „You’ve been a chief executive officer for so long you automatically accept the responsibility for whatever happens around you or to you, right? I’ve got news for you, darling, I was involved in this, too! In fact, I started it!“

  He sat up, releasing her to rake his hand impatiently through his thick, tousled hair. „And it’s all my fault it’s ground to a premature halt!“

  „For which I’m very grateful,“ she flung back, stung by his scathing tone. „I have no intention of being a one-night stand for you, dammit!“

  „And I have no intention of letting you be a one-night stand for your ex-fiance!“

  „How many times do I have to tell you, that’s not the way it’s going to be? I’ll be in charge tomorrow night and I know exactly what I’m doing!“

  „The hell you do! You’re so blinded by your memories of that bastard you can’t see the stupidity of your own plans! If you ran Brady Data Processing with that degree of insanity, you would have lost it to bankruptcy long ago!“

  „What do you know about running a company into insolvency?“ she gritted tersely. „Don’t talk to me about how to run my life or my business. We live in two separate worlds and you aren’t in any position to give me advice!“ She leaped to her feet, madly straightening her clothing and frantically trying not to cry. Why the threat of tears? She wished desperately she could figure out why this man had such an incredible affect on her. It made no sense at all!

  He stood up beside her with a quick grace and caught her wrist „Kalinda, I’m sorry,“ he muttered. „Please believe me. I never meant to shout at you like that But it’s so damn frustrating…“

  „A man your age must know how to handle a little masculine frustration by now!“

  „Fm not talking about the way you just frustrated me physically,“ he rasped, giving her a small shake. „I’m talking about how frustrating it is to try to make you see reason. You can’t go through with your plans for tomorrow night It’s too dangerous.“ His voice lowered gruffly, persuasively. „Please give me a chance to make you change your mind. I meant what I said a little while ago. Give me one night and I can make you forget him.“

  „Your ego is as vast as David’s!“

  The moment the words left her mouth Kalinda could have bitten her tongue. Red stained the tanned heights of his cheekbones as he reacted to the comparison of himself with the other man. His fingers on her wrist tightened bruisingly.

  Impulsively, without stopping to think, Kalinda lifted her hand to touch the side of his face with a placating gesture, her eyes soft and apologetic.

  „I’m sorry I said that,“ she whispered huskily. „I didn’t mean to imply you were anything like him. I know you’re not, believe me.“

  She waited in an agony of suspense, watching the play of emotions across his features. She hadn’t meant to hurt him, hadn’t really stopped to think that he could be hurt. Not by her. He hardly knew her!

  „That,“ he finally said evenly, „was a rather low blow!“

  She winced, unconsciously sinking her teeth into her lower lip as she met his hard, accusing stare.

  „I know. I’m sorry.“ She didn’t know what else to say.

  He searched her face a moment longer and then appeared to relax slightly. „But maybe you weren’t so far off the mark,“ he sighed. „I suppose it must sound like sheer male ego talking when I tell you all I need is one night to put that man out of your head forever.“

  Kalinda said nothing, but she didn’t deny his statement. His mouth twisted wryly. He raised his free hand and wrapped it around her neck under the fall of brown-blond hair. She felt him lightly massaging her nape and against her will her knees seemed to weaken. She didn’t understand his affect on her but she knew it was dangerous. Far more dangerous than any risks she might be running in her plot to avenge herself on David.

  „All I can say, sweetheart, is that it isn’t my ego talking, it’s that ‘perception’ you keep crediting me with,“ he half-smiled. „Won’t you listen to it?“

  „Rand, we aren’t meant for each other. Not even for a night,“ Kalinda said sadly. „Can’t you understand that? We’re two entirely different people. You need an easy-going, outdoorsy sort of woman. Perhaps someone who is also an artist“

  „And you’re a high-powered, competitive female executive who likes the good things in life, right?“ he finished for her with a knowing look. „A woman who knows what she wants in a relationship and doesn’t think she’s going to find it in me. After all, I’m a lazy, good-for-nothing, ski-bum-fisherman who sells a few artsy-craftsy things on the side to keep the wolf from the door. Completely lacking in the good old American work ethic.“

  Kalinda thought about the white Lotus and the expensively furnished home by the lake and refrained from inquiring as to the source of those things. She might not like the answer. The thought that she had met up with a professional gigolo and had almost let him make love to her was totally unnerving. She didn’t want to know which rich lady tourist had paid for the Lotus last winter!

  But even as she thought the worst of him, Kalinda knew she didn’t have all the facts. She barely knew him. She would try to refrain from judging him. He had his own life to live just as she had hers.

  „Rand, please, don’t put words in my mouth. Let’s just say we come from two different walks of life, okay? We should never have let ourselves get carried away like this on the basis of a simple physical attraction.“

  „Well, at least you’re admitting we have got that much going for us!“

  She smiled weakly, shaking her head in exasperation. „I can’t very well deny that, can I? But it’s not enough. I’m not in the market for a weekend affair and that’s final. I think I’d better be getting back to the motel.“

  „What about dinner tonight?“ he countered coolly. „I’ve already bought the steaks and the wine.“

  She looked at him helplessly. „And changed the sheets on the bed, too, I expect?“

  He stared at her for a second and then grinned that engaging, slightly feral grin which was so unbelievably attractive on him. „How did you guess?“

  „I have this strange feeling you’ve got the routine down pat!“

  „No,“ he denied at once, sobering. „This time it’s special. There’s nothing routine about it Please, Kalinda. Have dinner with me tonight“

  „So you can spend the evening trying to talk me out of my plans?“ she sighed.

  „Yes.“

  „No thanks!“

  „I swear I won’t drag you off to bed.“ There was a meaningful pause. „Unless, of course, you decide that’s where you bel
ong, after all. Just promise to have dinner with me. I swear I won’t muscle you into the bedroom.“

  „We’ll only spend the time arguing over what I’m going to do tomorrow night,“ she protested, knowing she was weakening before the persuasiveness in him.

  „Have you got anything better to do than argue with me?“ he murmured, his fingers on her nape moving lightly, seductively. „Think of it as an opportunity to convince me you know what you’re doing!“

  „How can I refuse such a charming invitation!“ she muttered dryly, wretchedly aware that spending the evening with him was exactly what she wanted to do, regardless of the complications involved.

  „You high-powered female executives are all alike,“ he taunted on a soft rumble of laughter as he bent to brush his lips against hers. „Can’t resist a challenge!“

  4

  Rand was a man of his word, Kalinda decided much later that night as she grimly closed her motel room door and went to the window to watch the Lotus disappear into the night Never had she spent an evening like the one he had just put her through!

  She turned away from the window, letting the drape fall into place and morosely surveyed her room. It had been one line of reasoning after another, one argument after another, one persuasive attack on her logic after another. She felt utterly exhausted, she thought with a rueful grimace.

  He had amazed her with his strategy, leaping nimbly from one point to the next in his efforts to convince her she was making a mistake in trying for revenge on David Hutton.

  And, in spite of his hints to the contrary, Rand had not resorted again to seduction. Kalinda shook her head wryly. Instead, he had fed her well, spent several hours intently „discussing“ the matter at hand, and then he’d left her on her doorstep with the most singly devastating comment of the evening.

  „Ask yourself,“ he’d ordered softly as he’d opened her door for her, „why you’re even bothering to listen to me in the first place. Face it, Kalinda, you want to be talked out of this fiasco. That’s the reason you told me the truth this afternoon, isn’t it? So that I could have a chance to play devil’s advocate?“

  He hadn’t waited for her crushing retort Instead, he’d vaulted easily down the steps, slid into the Lotus and disappeared. Leaving Kalinda behind to face a serious attack of self-honesty.

  The depressing part about the evening, she thought as she slipped into the satin and lace nightgown and climbed into bed, was that all of his arguments were reasonable. It was a foolish and potentially dangerous scheme she had concocted. But even Rand hadn’t hit on the one factor which was really troubling her about her own plans.

  It was a factor which Kalinda had kept pushing into the background but which had become stronger than ever as Rand’s arguments had weakened the rest of her logic. That factor was David Hutton’s wife.

  As Friday night approached, the unknown wife loomed larger and larger in Kalinda’s mind. It was one of the reasons she’d arrived early at the rendezvous point She’d wanted time to think about what she was doing. Time away from the pressures of work, from planning the party scheduled for the following week to entertain business associates, time away from her current and casual escorts of the moment.

  She’d retreated to the mountains to convince herself she was doing the justifiable thing and here she’d met a man who probably should have been a prosecuting attorney instead of a part-time arts and crafts dealer!

  Kalinda had never met Arleen Hutton but she knew a certain amount about her. At the time David had broken off the engagement there had been no lack of „friends“ to tell Kalinda who’d taken her place.

  Arleen was the daughter of a wealthy Colorado rancher. She’d brought money to the marriage, according to Kalinda’s acquaintances, and she was reputed to be a very beautiful woman. She was also a few years younger than Kalinda.

  It had been easy not to think about her, especially since Kalinda had no intention of actually trying to steal her husband away. But more and more frequently during the past week an insistent image had come to mind. The image of an innocent wife discovering her husband was meeting a woman at a remote mountain retreat.

  Kalinda, blessed with an empathy she could have done well without in the business world, couldn’t help wondering how she’d feel if she were that wife. And now Rand had systematically demolished all the reasons for revenge, leaving only the face of the unknown wife to haunt Kalinda’s conscience.

  Damn the man! She turned furiously over in bed, pounding the pillow with a disgusted fist. His talents truly had been wasted in life! With that sort of single-minded strength of purpose, he could have done just about anything he wanted in the world! But, she supposed thoughtfully, perhaps that’s exactly what he had done. Perhaps he was quite content to fish and ski and make lovely pieces of pottery. And date rich tourists!

  She lay staring at the ceiling for a long time after that, trying to recall the hurt and humiliation she’d felt two years ago. A hurt and humiliation that had come in the wake of the tragedy of her father’s death and had, therefore, been all the more devastating. Kalinda’s parents had been divorced several years previously and her mother had moved to Europe with her new husband the year Kalinda had gone off to college. Kalinda had faced both the tragedy and the humiliation quite alone.

  But it was difficult tonight to resurrect those old feelings. The habit of wanting revenge was still there in her mind, but the emotions driving those feelings were gone. If she were completely honest with herself, Kalinda thought wonderingly, she’d realize they had been missing for some time. Two years of hard work and success had killed them rather effectively.

  It had been only the habit that had made her jump at the opportunity of paying back David Hutton. Now, a combination of her conscience and the relentless arguments of a man she had only known for two days seemed to have succeeded in killing even the habit of wanting revenge. Kalinda thought once again of the unknown wife and of her own stupidity in wanting revenge on a man who wasn’t worth the time of day.

  She made up her mind about what to do in the morning and went very soundly to sleep.

  She dialed the private line number of David Hut-ton’s office promptly at eight o’clock the next morning. He was there, just as she had expected him to be. Whatever else could be said of the man, he was a hard worker. It was one of the things she had admired about him in the beginning…

  „David, this is Kalinda…“ she began firmly, coolly.

  „Getting impatient, darling?“ he chuckled knowingly. „It won’t be much longer now. I’m taking off around twelve. I’ll be in the mountains by the middle of the afternoon. Enjoying yourself? Your office said you’d taken off a couple of extra days.“

  „I left that message in case you tried to get in touch with me,“ she affirmed. „But, David…“

  „I can’t wait to see you again, Kali. God, it’s been a long time! I keep wondering what happened to us two years ago. We had so much going for us,“ he murmured deeply into the phone.

  Kalinda gritted her teeth. He knew very well what had happened to them two years ago! He’d caused it to happen! But the momentary anger died quickly, leaving once again her newfound determination.

  „David,“ she said calmly, „it’s no good. I’m not going to meet you up here. I’m calling so you won’t make the drive for nothing.“

  There was a fragment of stunned silence on the other end of the line and then David’s voice came soothingly.

  „This is hardly the time to get cold feet, Kali. We’ve got everything planned. Don’t panic, darling. Just sit tight for a few more hours until I get there. We’ll talk everything out You’ll see!“

  Mentally Kalinda pictured him sitting behind his desk in the downtown highrise where his company had its headquarters. It was a handsome image in many respects. David Hutton was a good-looking man with dark brown hair and eyes. He would be thirty-six now and, unless he’d changed a lot in the past couple of years, still lean and dynamic. He dressed well, lived well, and a
dmired those who did likewise. Two years ago Kalinda thought they would have made a good couple. It was with a small start that she realized this morning they would have made a disastrous couple. It would probably have been her David was planning to cheat today instead of the unknown woman who was his wife.

  „I’m not getting cold feet, David. I’ve simply changed my mind.“ She’d decided earlier on the approach she would use. If she told David she’d only been plotting to make a fool of him, he would be infuriated and she didn’t feel like putting up with that sort of scene. She would leave him with a sop for his ego, annoying as that course of action might be for her.

  „Why, Kalinda?“ he demanded with the first touch of a chill in his voice.

  „If s wrong, David, and we both know it There’s your wife to consider, for one thing and there’s the little matter of both our reputations. What if someone were to discover what’s going on?“

  „That’s hardly likely,“ he growled forcefully. „And you don’t have to concern yourself with my wife. I’ve never really talked to you about my marriage, darling. It’s one of the things I wanted to discuss with you this weekend. It’s… it’s been something of a business arrangement,“ he hinted delicately as if casting out a lure.

  Kalinda lifted one brow sardonically but said calmly into the phone, „I’m afraid that’s your problem, David. All I know is I don’t want to be involved in a triangle…“

  „Kali, honey, stop talking like that,“ he coaxed, sounding a little desperate and very determined. „This is just between you and I. Now you stay put I’ll be up there in a few hours. I can get away earlier than planned. We’ll talk this out in person.“

  „Go ahead and drive up here, David, if you like. But I won’t be here. I mean it, I’m not seeing you again.“ Kalinda felt her patience and reasonableness slipping away. The firmness in her words was unmistakable. „Let’s just agree we were on the verge of doing something we both would have regretted and let it go at that“