Fire in the Wind

by Alexandra Sellers

  "What happened to the Colin James flair?" she whispered to him as a model whom she recognized as Alison disappeared through the curtains wearing the last sweater suit in Colin's line and they got up to move out to the lounge.

  "The Philistine loves them, every one," Colin returned sotto voce, with every appearance of not giving a damn. "Just like television," he went on bitingly. "Pap for the mindless millions. Nobody has any taste any more."

  Since Vanessa enjoyed quite a number of shows on television, she wasn't in entire agreement with this stricture, but she was used to sweeping sarcasm from Colin and put it down to his irritation at having had his Philistine in control of the designs. This lot looked as though it had been designed by a computer.

  "Colin," she said when they had ordered coffee, "sometimes I hate your stuff and sometimes I love it. But I almost always know it's your design. J wouldn't have known today. What happened?"

  Colin drank some coffee and said bluntly, "What happened is that I am sick of the Philistine and I'm going to quit. On Monday, as a matter of fact."

  "Colin!" This was totally unexpected. "Where are you going? Who will you be working for?"

  "Myself, darling," said Colin. "I'm going to open up my own business. Want to join me? I am serious."

  "What?"

  "You heard me, Vanessa."

  "Colin, what would you want with two designers? You need an administrator. And what are you going to finance this with?"

  "Darling, I have a wealthy friend," he said calmly. "I put a proposition to him and he thought it looked good. He knows I'm wasted on what I'm doing. That's why I had no time to argue over the Philistine's pronouncements. I've been planning this."

  "What are you planning? Fabrics?" she hazarded. Colin's first love was fabric design.

  "You got it," he said. "All kinds of fabric, from painted leather to crinkled cotton. In some instances I shall merely sell the design to the trade, but for some I will have the cloth made up. This is where you would come in. While I am designing the fabric, you might design items that are going to be made from the fabric. You know we would work extremely well together. What do you say?"

  Vanessa was flabbergasted. "Well, but... good God, Colin!" she stammered. "I'd need notice of that. I mean, what would I be—a partner, an employee? I couldn't contribute any backing—"

  "What about the Standishes?" Colin asked. "They'd back you fast enough."

  There was no arguing that. Colin knew probably better than anyone how often the Standish family had tried to press money on her. "If it was a question of a loan, Vanessa, I thought you might feel differently about it. A business loan, to be paid back."

  She bit her lip. "I'd have to think it over, Colin," she said, shaking her head.

  They spent the afternoon and early evening discussing it. Colin was more enthused than she had seen him since college days, and by the time she left him to dress for dinner with Tom and the important buyer, Vanessa was almost as excited as he was.

  She dressed in the simple black dress she had worn on Monday night, and noticed as she made up that her face had picked up some colour from her morning on the Skookum Sail.

  Jake had asked her out for dinner tonight, giving her an uneasy suspicion that he had decided to rush her. It had been almost with relief that she had explained about the business dinner with Tom.

  "It won't run late, then, will it?" Jake had asked. "Call me when you come in, and come for a nightcap."

  She had found herself weakly agreeing that if it wasn't too late she would call him, but she knew she'd be a fool if she did so.

  And yet—she stood back from the mirror and looked at herself. The black dress, with its shoestring straps and fitted bodice curving low over her breasts and leaving her shoulders and arms bare, was perhaps the sexiest item in her wardrobe, and it wasn't what she had planned to wear tonight. And her hair was dressed in a way she rarely wore it, held back at the sides with combs, but cascading down her back in a cluster of curls.

  She was dressing for Jake, she realized with dismay. Damn him, damn him! Here she was telling herself that she wouldn't call him when she got in, and at the same time unconsciously dressing in a way she knew would entice him. What a fool she was! She would have no one to blame but herself if she got hurt. Jake was not pretending to be in love with her now. He had told her what he wanted from her on day one.

  And somehow she knew that, for some reason known only to himself, Jake Conrad was determined to get it.

  The dinner was not a great success. That the important chain-store buyer was well used to being entertained by manufacturers trying to curry favour was evident, as was the fact that she didn't appreciate being in a party consisting of three women and one man. For Tom, who was more smitten than Vanessa had ever seen him, unless this was some elaborate act, had brought Margaret along, too. And he was paying altogether too much attention to her.

  When the conversation veered to politics in the desperate way that conversations in danger of flagging often do, Vanessa nearly despaired. The Canadians she had met always seemed to be much more knowledgeable about American politics than she was about Canadian politics, and she was sure that Tom's lecture on the swing to the Right in America could only bore these women, in whose country they were, after all, guests. Surely she could think of something to ward off Tom's imminent lecture?

  "Tell me," she heard herself saying to the disgruntled buyer, "do you think that the way the West was opened in Canada has an effect now on the level of crime you have here, compared to the States?"

  "How do you mean?" asked the buyer, her eyes showing a glint of real interest for the first time. With a silent salute to Jake Conrad, Vanessa presented the theory he had outlined to her last night, complete with the Northwest Mounted Police and (hoping she had the name right) Sergeant Preston of the Yukon and his dog, King.

  "Sergeant Preston of the Yukon!" exclaimed the buyer, beginning to laugh. "Wherever did you hear of him? My God, it must be twenty years since I heard that name!"

  Tom was looking at Vanessa in surprise, but the discussion of crime and law and order in Canada lasted for much of the meal and launched the important buyer and Margaret into a political discussion that kept the buyer happy, even if Tom and Vanessa didn't understand a word of it.

  It was only eleven o'clock when she said goodnight to them in the lobby and headed toward the elevators. She had made up her mind. She wasn't going to call Jake tonight. She knew he would read a message into it if she did; she knew she would be walking into the lion's den.

  Vanessa stepped off the elevator on her floor and walked slowly down the hall and opened the door to her room. There was a soft light burning beside the bed and the draperies were open. The lights on Grouse Mountain and Hollyburn Mountain twinkled in the surrounding blackness. Vanessa opened the window and breathed in the sweet sea-scented air.

  Pity. She would have liked to tell him about how Sergeant Preston of the Yukon had won another battle tonight. She knew she could make him laugh with that, and with an imitation of Tom's self-important lecturing. She would have liked to thank him for telling her about Sergeant Preston and the Mounted Police. She might even have liked to tell him about Colin's offer, just to see what he thought of it....

  With a short self-deprecatory sigh, Vanessa dropped her hand from the drapery and turned back to the room. Then she crossed the room to the bed and picked up the phone receiver. "Mr. Conrad's suite, please," she told the switchboard operator.

  "Hi," she said softly when his voice answered. "Does the offer of a nightcap still hold?"

  Chapter 5

  She had expected to be going down to the private lounge off the lobby, where she had been twice before, but instead Jake had told her to come to the top floor of the hotel.

  When she stepped out of the elevator there were only four numbered doors opening onto the small lobby, and she blinked when she realized how big each of the four suites must be. These could only be the presidential suites, where royalty and
foreign dignitaries stayed. Each of the four doors was a large and ornate double door, and one stood open onto a softly lighted interior. With a gentle tap on the panels Vanessa slipped inside.

  It was a huge room, deeply carpeted, luxuriously furnished, and Vanessa leaned her back against the door as she closed it and gazed around. There were several lamps shedding soft light around the room, but the light was still low enough for the room to be dominated by the view out of the far wall. It was all glass, at least twenty-five feet long and ten feet high, and beyond the glass there seemed to be a very large expanse of grass and shrub and even trees on the roof balcony. Beyond that was the city, and then the broad black expanse of the ocean.

  Jake was standing by the window, a glass in his hand, staring out as though completely absorbed in his thoughts. He hadn't heard her; he didn't know she was there. For a moment Vanessa enjoyed the luxury of watching him without being seen.

  He was wearing dark pants and a cream shirt open at the neck and rolled up at the sleeves. His hair was ruffled and curling as though he had been running his hands through it, and when her glance moved farther she perceived the reason.

  A beautiful antique desk lighted by a soft yellow glow, as well as a long coffee table and the couch behind it, were strewn with business papers. It looked as though he had been working between the desk and the couch, which were several yards apart across the room. It seemed like an awful lot of paper for one man to be considering at once.

  "Hello," she said softly, dismayed by the caressing note she heard in her own voice. Jake turned his head and then his body, put down his glass and moved across the room toward her.

  "Hello," he responded when he reached her, just as softly, just as caressingly. He took her hands and gently pulled her into his arms. "Thank you for coming," he said. "I needed you." Then he bent his head and his mouth found hers.

  It was what she had been waiting for all day, without knowing it, ever since she had awakened from that dream of perfect communion. For the first few moments the touch of his lips filled her with perfect peace, with solace, soothed her after a day of turmoil. Then her heart started to beat in heavy, slow thuds, and a thin flame licked through her body, setting her alight. She lifted her arms up around his neck and felt his hands grip her back responsively.

  Her lips parted in unconscious invitation, and his seeking tongue came in with a teasing exploration that she felt down to her toes. Vanessa pulled her lips away from his to gasp in a breath, and then they were smiling into each other's eyes, and there was no tension, no pressure, nothing but the perfect communion of her dream.

  "Come and sit down," said Jake, releasing her to lead her over to a large stuffed chair. "Talk to me."

  "What shall I talk about?" she asked, smiling.

  Crossing the room to open the door of a drinks cabinet much like the one in the lounge many floors beneath them, he said, "Anything. Anything at all that will take my mind off my work. Mineral water and lime again, or would you prefer something stronger? Brandy, liqueur?"

  "Brandy would be nice," she said. "It will help me sleep." And then she could have kicked herself.

  "Will it?" was all he said, and he looked over his shoulder at her for only a moment, but the effect this had on her was profound. Suddenly there was more than just desire in the air between them—there was desire and the promise of fulfilment.

  "What have you been working on?" Vanessa asked abruptly, in the most matter-of-fact voice she could muster.

  "A reverse takeover bid, but I don't think it's going to come off this time."

  "What's a reverse takeover bid?"

  "It's what happens when I want to take over a company that's too big for me to buy out. I sell them my corporation first, and then with the money they pay me for it, I buy back controlling interest in the corporation that now includes the target company and my corporation."

  He handed her a thick carved glass that might have been Waterford crystal in which the brandy glowed with a dark fire. He cleared some papers from the corner of the couch nearest her, sank down onto it and, simultaneously taking a sip from his glass, slung his feet up into the middle of the document-strewn coffee table.

  "Goodness!" Vanessa exclaimed. "Does it work?" She was rather surprised that he would discuss such a plan with her so openly.

  "Oh, yes. In this case everyone concerned would agree to the thing beforehand. It doesn't depend on sleight-of-hand, just politicking and hard work." He threw back his head and rubbed his hand in his hair, making it stand even more violently on end. "Sometimes too much work. And that's how it seems to me tonight. Like too much work. What have you been doing today?"

  "Tonight, predictably, I was helping Tom entertain the buyers. This afternoon...." She took a sip of the brandy and wondered about outlining Colin's plans to someone who owned a competitive firm, then decided to go ahead. "This afternoon I most unpredictably received an offer to start up in business with a friend."

  "Did you?" Jake grunted. "Difficult time to be starting up in business."

  "Yes, I suppose you're right. But—oh, I don't know, it was all very sudden. I'm not even sure I believe he's serious," said Vanessa, her indecision and worry sounding in her voice.

  "Care to tell me about it?" he offered.

  Jake listened without comment till she had told him the idea as Colin had presented it to her. Then the two of them discussed the pros and cons, with Jake giving her the benefit of his obviously large experience of the business world.

  "What attracts you most about the proposition?" he asked eventually.

  "Artistic freedom," she said unhesitatingly. "The chance to produce what I think will sell on the market. I've been wishing I could make a move for some time now. But this is not the best time to be looking for a job."

  He asked what she meant by artistic freedom, and suddenly she was telling him all her ideas for what working women wanted in clothes, about how they wanted to look business-like without sacrificing femininity, about simplicity.

  "It sounds as though Colin's dream and your own dream don't quite coincide," Jake said at last.

  "What do you mean?"

  "You won't have much room for your own ideas if you're turning his fabric into garments, will you? And the kind of set-up he's talking about sounds as though he means to appeal to a very different market group than the one you feel committed to."

  "Do you think so?" She had had her doubts about the number of times Colin had used the word "exclusive" this afternoon, but....

  "You did mention that he planned to be designing exclusive fabric design for individual customers as well as for the trade."

  "Yes, but that was to be later, if we caught on."

  "Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but fashion rarely goes from the masses upwards. It usually happens first with the upper classes or the wealthy and then filters down, am I right?"

  "Yes," she agreed, impressed but no longer surprised by the scope of his knowledge.

  "Then it stands to reason his target group is going to be the wealthier women right from the start. When it's caught on with them and is in full bloom, then it will be ready for mass-market delivery. But unless he's planning a very big operation indeed someone else will be doing that."

  Of course that was exactly what Colin was planning. There was nothing wrong with it—it could be a brilliant success. But was it her dream? Was it something she wanted to spend her life—or the next few years of her life—doing?

  Vanessa looked at Jake Conrad and made a moue of disappointment. "You're right," she said. "I guess the thought of getting away from Tom Marx was so attractive I just started to think anything would do. But I can't make this decision without a lot of thought."

  "Do you have a lot of trouble with Tom Marx?" Jake asked, and she laughed.

  "Don't you have arguments with your designers?"

  "No, I don't. Should I?"

  "You mean you don't scream when they want to use two inches more fabric than is absolutely necessary in a ski
rt? Or fabric-covered buttons instead of plastic ones? Or a stronger thread?"

  He looked apologetic. "Is that what it's like? I don't have much to do with the actual running of the company. There's a manager who does that."

  "Well, you can take it from me he makes the designer's life hell."

  "You don't sound very happy," he observed.

  Vanessa shook her head. "I'm sick of always offering the cheapest possible execution of a design, when a few cents more per item would make all the difference. I'll never understand what's wrong with producing a well-made product for a little less than the ultimate profit. It just makes me—" She broke off self-consciously. "Don't get me started." She laughed. "I make boring speeches on this subject."

  Jake didn't answer. He was looking at her consideringly. "Everyone has a weak spot," he said slowly, as if he were thinking aloud. His eyes were somehow distant; he seemed not to see her.

  It made her uncomfortable. "What?" she asked, tilting her chin at him inquiringly, and immediately his eyes were focused on her again.

  "Tom Marx," he said. "His weak spot is that he wants to get something for nothing. The less he gives his customers for their money the happier he is. That's why you can't fight it. It's not really the profit he's after—it's the psychological kick."

  That was certainly interesting, but Vanessa was uncomfortably certain that the "weak spot" Jake Conrad had been thinking about wasn't Tom Marx's, but her own.

  Suddenly she wondered if all this conversation was really nothing more than Jake Conrad's way of getting her into bed, if in fact he was only pretending to be interested, pretending to take her seriously. He had looked right through her just now, as though... she might just as well, Vanessa thought irritatedly, have been Louisa Hayward. He'd listen to her woebegone little life story with exactly the same flattering attention.... Vanessa leaned forward and carefully set down her glass.