Green Fire

by Stephanie James

  “The half million could be exactly what we need to bail ourselves out of this mess. The question is, Will Cassidy let us get our hands on it?”

  Shelley shook her head after each question. “Please keep in mind that we have yet to hear from the California group. There may not be any offer at all forthcoming. If we don’t get the offer, we can hardly make a deal with either Joel Cassidy or the bank.”

  By the end of the day Shelley was exhausted. She was also, she discovered to her unlimited disgust, hungry. Joel had gotten her poor stomach back in the habit of eating. As the meeting broke up, she met Dean’s eyes across the room.

  “What do you say we adjourn for a martini?” he inquired casually as the last of his managers filed out of the room, mumbling to themselves. “I think we owe it to ourselves.”

  Shelley was on the verge of accepting when she saw the beginning of a deeper question in Dean Ackerly’s eyes. No, she thought wildly, the last thing I need is another business involvement! She’d learned her lesson with Joel, hadn’t she? Better to squelch that question in Dean’s gaze at once.

  “Thanks, but I’m hot and exhausted, Dean.” She smiled briefly. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll just go home and throw myself into the pool and then have a quiet meal and go to bed. Thanks, anyway.” She was halfway out the door by the time she’d finished her little speech.

  “Another time, perhaps,” he murmured politely, watching her go.

  “Yes,” she agreed, knowing she was lying through her teeth. If there was one thing she was certain of, it was that she would maintain only a business relationship with Dean Ackerly.

  There would have been no point in pursuing anything else, anyway, she told herself as she drove home. A relationship with Dean would follow the same course as her other relationships had followed over the years. There would be a short period of mutual interest that would slowly deteriorate as he realized she expected as much respect for her career as he expected for his. When he pushed for intimacy, she would begin withdrawing, knowing there would be no long-term commitment and not wanting a sexual relationship without that commitment Eventually, things would disintegrate altogether. He would never really understand her.

  Joel Cassidy had been the exception to that pattern, and Shelley still could not justify her reaction to him. How could she have broken the safe routine of her relationships for such a man? A man who could ruin all of her career plans? A man who called her a hustler? A man who seduced her? A man who might have paid another woman to bribe her?

  By the time she allowed that painful thought to re-emerge in her mind, Shelley was walking through the front door of her home. She did exactly what she had told Dean she was going to do. She changed into a black and white striped one-piece swim suit that she had bought because she thought the severe colors and striping made her look a little thinner, gathered up an oversized towel and a swim cap and headed for the pool in the center of the condominium complex.

  As she sank blissfully into the refreshing water, she tried very hard not to think about how Joel had carried her in and out of the pool at his home. A few of her neighbors were doing the same as she, relaxing after a hard day, and she chatted pleasantly with them before beginning a series of laps that she hoped would drain some of the tension from her body.

  It was rattier effective therapy. As she moved back and forth in the water, Shelley’s head began to clear, and she started thinking again. She wasn’t going to sort out the mystery around Joel Cassidy by rehashing the few facts available to her.

  Very well, she told herself as she came to the end of the pool and turned neatly underwater for the next lap, she couldn’t predict Joel’s role accurately. At this point in time, that much was a given fact Today, with Dean Ackerly’s staff, she had worked out various alternatives available to the firm once the future clarified itself. So what should she be doing in the meantime?

  The answer came like a flash of lightning into her head as she surged up out of the water and grasped the far end of the pool’s edge. It hit her the moment she blinked the water out of her hazel eyes and looked up to see Joel Cassidy standing in front of her.

  For a second, they stared silently at each other, Joel’s gaze shuttered and coolly assessing; Shelley’s darkening to a golden green. The answer, she realized, was to be as cool and mysterious as he was. She would play his game and give away nothing. There would be no clues from her as to Ackerly’s contingency decisions; nor would she allow him to realize just how wary she was of him. She would tell him nothing about the bribe, give him nothing to go on. He would find himself picking up the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle in the dark, just as she was having to do. She would start making a few of her own rules in this ruthless, dangerous game.

  “You have a nasty habit of disappearing on a man,” Joel finally remarked, breaking the silence as he crouched down in front of her. He was wearing the usual faded denims and blue shirt, and his heavy red hair gleamed faintly in the last rays of the sun. “I spent a good portion of the afternoon dialing your office, only to be told you were ‘out’”

  “I was,” she said simply, stripping off the bathing cap but making no move to pull herself up out of the water. She felt safer staying in the pool for the moment “I was with a client,” she clarified self-righteously.

  “So I discovered when I finally got mad enough to drive over and see for myself,” he retorted laconically. “I think that lady who sits at the front desk has taken a strong personal dislike to me.”

  “It must be your winning personality and dazzling smile.” Shelley kept her voice light and supremely casual, adding just the right touch of mockery. She would keep this man dangling, exactly as he was doing to her. Two could manipulate the control panel of this particular war game.

  “That’s what it took to get her to tell me where you had gone. A winning personality and a dazzling smile. She finally admitted you were over at Ackerly Manufacturing.”

  “Nice of you not to barge in while I was with a client,” she muttered, looking up at him from under her lashes while she tried to anticipate the next move.

  “I wouldn’t think of it. Just remember, I expect equal treatment. After all, I’m going to be a much bigger client than Ackerly in the long run. Assisting Ackerly Mahufacturing will help give you a reputation. Being my accountant will give you a certain amount of sheer clout.”

  “Are you trying to bribe me, Mr. Cassidy?” she heard herself say before she had paused to think. Horrified at her slip of the tongue, Shelley went on hastily. “Trying to tell me it’s going to be to my advantage to spend a little more time with you?” She winced inwardly. That remark wasn’t much better!

  His mouth crooked upward at the corner. “Want to hear me enumerate the advantages?” He seemed to be relaxing a little, perhaps because he had succeeded in locating her once again. Was he really spending a large portion of his days trying to keep tabs on her?

  Shelley folded her arms on the edge of the pool and smiled up at him with mocking politeness. “Name one.”

  “You’ll eat better.”

  “That’s an advantage?”

  “You’ll have an opportunity to learn to defend the planet earth from a variety of alien invaders.”

  “Another dubious benefit,” she murmured, kicking her feet idly behind her in the water.

  “Plus,” he concluded, leaning forward slightly as the crooked smile became something resembling a leer, “I’m good in bed and in a pool!”

  Shelley felt the tips of her ears go red as she glared at him, outraged. How many of her neighbors around the pool had heard that remark? “Let’s just see how good you really are in the water!”

  That he was already leaning forward, a little off balance as he crouched so close to the edge, helped greatly. Shelley grasped his arm and heaved herself backward with a force that clearly took him by surprise.

  Joel’s astonished expression and the oath that was cut off as he landed in the pool with a splash were satisfaction enough for Shelley. B
ut if ever there was a time for strategic retreat, this was it. Hastily, she tried to scramble safely up onto dry land, aware of the grinning faces ringing the pool.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” With surprising agility, given the fact that he was weighted down with water-heavy clothing, Joel grabbed her ankle and hauled her back into the water. “Is that any way to treat an important client?” he growled with laughing menace, and then he transferred his grip from her ankle to her shoulders and dunked her briefly.

  “My hair!” she gasped in dismay when she sputtered to the surface.

  “Your hair is not as important as my pride. I think I want a bit more respect from my accountant!”

  “Yes, sir!” she drawled, thinking that he suddenly looked a great deal happier than he had a few moments ago. It was as if the playful roughhousing had reassured him in some way. She liked seeing him happy, Shelley realized fleetingly, and then told herself it was to her benefit to keep him off guard and relaxed like this. Yes, this was the way to play the game. She must keep him unwary and unknowing.

  “Much better,” he approved, swimming with her to the shallow end of the pool. He kept a firm grip on her wrist as he hauled her out beside him. “Keep the client happy. That should be your motto in the future.”

  “I’ll remember that next time I’m talking to Dean Ackerly,” she said obligingly, and then wondered why she had deliberately baited him like that.

  “Why, Shelley, honey, are you by any chance trying to make me jealous?” he asked interestedly as they paused briefly to scoop up her towel.

  “Do clients get jealous of each other?” she countered, rubbing herself with furious energy and using the activity as an excuse not to meet his piercing blue eyes.

  “This one would if he thought the business relationship between you and Ackerly was in danger of growing into something more!” he told her crisply as she handed him the towel. After a moment, he gave up the fruitless attempt to dry himself and his clothing and draped the towel around his neck. “How are things going with Ackerly?” he inquired in a suspiciously conversational tone as he took her hand and started back across the grass in the direction of her condominium.

  Shelley tried to assess what lay behind the question. Simple curiosity? Or was he deliberately trying to pump her for information? She had to go on the latter assumption, she told herself. She had to assume the worst if she was going to give Ackerly any measure of protection.

  “Things are going fine. Don’t worry; your money will be safe,” she said carelessly.

  “Still think you can salvage the firm?”

  “We’ll see.” Shelley pretended a total lack of interest in the discussion. “I hope you didn’t arrive with more food tonight, Joel. I already had a nice, low-calorie dinner planned.”

  “How low calorie?”

  “A piece of dry toast and an egg,” she told him grandly, relieved that he seemed willing to drop the Ackerly conversation. Perhaps he was wary of making her suspicious? It was all so complicated!

  “That sounds awful. Lucky for you I exercised my usual foresight and planning abilities again this evening,” he added cheerfully. “I am beginning to wonder if you can cook anything besides grapefruit or an egg, though.”

  “Of course I can cook! All dieters can cook, usually very well. How do you think they get into so much trouble in the first place?”

  “Prove it.” He grinned as they stepped through the kitchen door, and he knelt to remove his wet, sloshing shoes.

  “How?” She eyed him challengingly.

  “See what you can do with what I’ve got in the bag.” He nodded toward the new grocery sack on her tiled counter. “By the way, you neglected to lock your front door earlier,” he said in a reproving tone of voice. “I’m going to take a shower and get out of these wet clothes.”

  “Wait!” she interrupted hurriedly. “What will you put on afterward? I don’t have a robe that would begin to fit you!”

  “You should have thought of that before you pulled me into the pool,” he told her kindly, beginning to unbutton the soaking shirt. Then he relented. “Have you got a dryer?”

  “Oh, yes,” she mumbled, embarrassed at having forgotten the obvious. It was the thought of Joel Cassidy’s running naked around her apartment, using her shower and generally making himself too much at home, that had blanked her mind for a painful second, she decided regretfully. “You can use the shower in my bathroom. I’ll use the guest bath,” she added quickly, hurrying off. Now why in the world had she ordered him into the intimacy of her own bathroom? Damn it! It was growing more and more difficult to think clearly around Joel!

  When he reappeared in her kitchen twenty-five minutes later with a towel wrapped around his lean waist, it was to pause and sniff the savory aromas in satisfaction.

  “My God! You can cook! When do we eat?” He leaned over the simmering pot on the stove, and Shelley retreated a step from the clean, tanned expanse of naked flesh. He looked so good to her, appealed in such a fundamental way to her senses, she realized uneasily. How did one play it cool and stay in charge of a situation like this? Never had a man’s mere presence had such an effect on her.

  “We eat,” she managed gamely, “as soon as you get properly dressed. Your clothes should be about done.”

  Twenty minutes later, she presented the chicken curry and brown rice with a flourish. Lined up in a neat array around the platter of curry were little bowls of various condiments: chutney, diced hard-cooked eggs, chopped celery, raisins, coconut and chopped black olives. To one side, a spinach salad in a clear glass bowl waited. As Joel took his seat with anticipation, she poured the pale-gold Chardonnay.

  “All this out of that grocery sack?” he asked in amazement and awe.

  “Some of it came out of some jars and cans I found buried in a cupboard,” she confessed lightly. “I’d forgotten about the coconut and chutney I had stashed away.”

  “I take back any innuendo I may have made about your inability to cook,” he told her after the first bite.

  “You knew I’d respond to a challenge, didn’t you? Are you always so good at manipulating situations and people, Joel?” She tasted the rich California wine and watched him over the rim of the glass as he helped himself to samples of each of the condiments.

  “I manage to get by in this world,” he said with blatantly false modesty.

  “Yes, you do, don’t you?” Why this desire to goad and provoke, she wondered silently. What was it about this man that kept luring her into dangerous areas?

  “The next question,” he informed her casually, “is, Do I get everything I want in this world? To which I then reply, Yes, if I want it badly enough. At which point, you will accuse me of arrogance, right?”

  “You’ve just destroyed the next ten minutes of dinner conversation,” she pointed out with a sigh. “What will we talk about now?”

  “Oh, I’m willing to stay with the subject a little longer.” He met her eyes meaningfully and smiled invitingly. “I’m willing to take it the next logical step and tell you that what I want most in the world right now is you. Don’t look so shocked. You knew it was coming, didn’t you? I haven’t made any secret about it” He helped himself to the spinach salad as she stared at him.

  “You mean you expect to have an affair with me?” she forced herself to ask.

  “I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea just because I walked out last night. It took me all day to decide that was a mistake. Which is why I’m back tonight.”

  The spicy curry and the tangy chutney were quite tasteless in her mouth now. Shelley tried to rally her forces. She hadn’t expected him to be quite this bold. At least not over dinner!

  “Why did you walk out last night?” she tried to say disinterestedly.

  “Some crazy notion that you needed a little time, I think. But when I spent another day trying to track you down again—”

  “I was working! Not deliberately avoiding you!”

  “I realize that” he responded gently.
“But it also made me realize I want to know I can find you with some degree of certainty.” He picked up his wine glass and swirled the contents reflectively. “I want you to come and live with me, Shelley Banning. I want to know where you’ll be every night. I can stop driving myself crazy during the day if I know you’ll be home when I get there.”

  Shelley slowly set down her fork, no longer able to make even a pretense of eating. Her nerves were vibrating with a thrill that was a combination of fear and longing. She seemed fated to know well those two emotions around this man.

  “Do you want me to come and live with you for the duration of the time I’m responsible for your hundred thousand dollars?” she mocked tightly. “Is this a business arrangement you’re offering, Joel?”

  The steel hardened in the depths of his eyes, but his voice was quiet and purposeful. “We’ll talk about it after dinner. The offer is obviously affecting your appetite, and I wouldn’t want that.”

  “Joel,” she began forcefully, determined to refuse the proposition once and for all.

  “Eat, woman. And stop worrying about the future. I’ve already told you I tend to get much of what I want in life, so why fight the inevitable?”

  “Now you’re trying to provoke me!” she accused.

  “You know you love a challenge,” he murmured, his expression softening indulgently.

  And what or whom do you love, Joel Cassidy? she wanted to ask with sudden fierceness, only to be shocked by the silent question. This man loved wheeling and dealing. He was a hustler; he’d admitted it. She didn’t have to ask him if he was capable of love. She should be able to guess the answer immediately! Besides, she wasn’t searching for love, anyway, was she? Shelley reminded herself that she’d tried to find it and had already learned the hard way that it was an elusive emotion probably not intended for women who were cursed with ambition and a desire for success. The divorce rate among the ambitious and successful women she knew was inordinately high, and she had been a statistic herself. Men did not understand or accept such women readily into the intimate side of their lives. They were willing to have brief affairs with such women because a dynamic, self-contained female was an exciting challenge. But Shelley knew as well as anyone that when the relationship progressed beyond that stage, there were grave risks.