Storm Over the Lake

by Diana Palmer

  “Yes, sir,” she’d returned just as curtly. “Backwards, forwards, and upside down, if you like.”

  “Upside down?” His dark, insolent eyes had traced a frankly sensuous path down her slender figure. “Won’t your slip show, Meredith?”

  She’d blushed. And he’d thrown back his head and roared like the lion he was. A lion, and she hadn’t shown fear, and he’d respected her for that. Perhaps it had been just a bit more than respect, although he never went past skillful innuendos in their boss-secretary relationship before he found her out. Before he threw her out. Before he…

  “You’re thinner than I remember, Meredith,” he said, his eyes narrow and glittering under the broad scowl. “Skinny might be an apt description.”

  “And you’re heavier,” she threw back, not pulling her punches. “And older,” she added deliberately.

  Something very like a flash of amusement touched the dark eyes. “I’m forty, in case you need reminding,” he said. “I can give you eighteen years, little girl.”

  “Seventeen,” she replied. “I’ll be 23 this month.”

  He looked her over again, speculatively. “Aren’t you going to ask why I told Charlie to send you?”

  Her lower lip trembled despite her best effort at control. “I don’t have to ask.”

  He searched her wan, tired face, hollow-eyed from lack of sleep. “No, you don’t, do you?” he replied grimly.

  She drew a deep breath. “Jack said I was to stay with you and Lillian,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster. “I’d prefer a hotel.”

  “No doubt. But, you don’t have a choice. You gave that up when you agreed to come, Persephone,” he said, eyeing her coldly. “You always reminded me of her, Meredith, with your hair like honey and your face so damned innocent!”

  She flushed to the edges of her hairline. “Why didn’t you just hire a hit man and have me shot?” she asked shakily.

  “Because I’ve waited a long time for this,” he told her, “and I plan to enjoy every minute of it. Give me your claim check and I’ll have Frank pick up your luggage.”

  She handed it to him automatically. He gestured, and a tall, thin man in a chauffeur’s uniform joined him, took the baggage claim check and left.

  “I didn’t think you’d bother coming to fetch me yourself,” she said coldly as he took her arm and walked her briskly toward the terminal entrance.

  “The look on your face when you saw me was worth it,” he said flatly.

  She preceded him out the door to the gray Rolls parked at the curb, and let him put her inside. He went around the rear of the sleek automobile and slid in beside her.

  She felt the car shake as Frank put the luggage in the boot, and again as he got in the driver’s seat and the Rolls surged forward.

  He shifted in the seat to face her, his jacket falling open over his broad chest under the white silk shirt he wore. “A reporter,” he chided. “My God, it was the last thing I’d ever have guessed you were.”

  She stared down at the champagne-colored upholstery of the seat. “I’d like to tell you why I did it…”

  “I already know.”

  She glanced at him quickly. How could he have known that the magazine promised her enough money to pay her mother’s hospital expenses and doctor bills…

  “I had you followed,” he said darkly. “You were seen giving the money to a man, in a hotel restaurant! You damned little…!”

  “Please, it wasn’t what you…!”

  “Shut up.” He said it quietly, but in a tone that dared her to challenge him. “I didn’t bring you back to think up bigger and better lies to explain yourself, Meredith.”

  She wanted to tell him that the man she was giving the money to was her father’s attorney; that after her father’s death, everything had to go to pay off debts. There wasn’t enough to begin paying the specialists who were trying to repair what massive strokes had done to her mother. The money she earned from the magazine exclusive would have done that—although she refused the check when the story was run. She couldn’t have borne to take it after what she’d done to Adrian. But he wouldn’t listen. And even if he did, what difference did it make now whether he believed her or not?

  “It was an insurance check from my father’s death I was signing over to him,” she wanted to say, “not blood money I got for selling the story that ruined you.” But it was no use.

  A large, darkly beautiful masculine hand with its ruby ring propped itself on the seat behind her. “Charlie mentioned you had responsibilities in Miami—someone you were supporting. Are you still keeping him up, Meredith?” he asked cruelly.

  She met his eyes evenly. “My private life is none of your business, Mr. Devereaux. It never was.”

  “That’s the damned truth. But mine was yours, wasn’t it, little girl?” he growled. “I trusted you, dammit!”

  She swallowed. “I know.”

  They were nearing the house, now. She watched the wooded, flowering grandeur of the long, paved driveway out the window as they neared the big brownstone house in its nest of oak, pine, and magnolia trees. There were flowers everywhere. Lillian’s work, no doubt, because the thin little woman loved them so.

  Lillian met her at the door. The wiry, silver-haired woman was just as Dana remembered her—brusque and efficient, but her brown eyes were as warm as a cozy fire in the hearth.

  “Yes,” Lillian said with a smile, eyeing the younger woman as they stood in the spacious foyer. “You’re a bit older, but you haven’t gained a pound. I’ll have to fix that. Have you eaten?”

  Dana managed a shaky smile, her ears listening for movement in the den where Adrian had gone as she stood in the light from the crystal chandelier that crowned the winding staircase.

  “Yes, thank you,” she told Lillian. “I had breakfast on the plane.”

  “You’ll want coffee, though.” The smile faded as the older woman took stock of Dana’s nervousness. “Don’t worry now,” she whispered stealthily. “It’s not…”

  “Lillian!” The voice was deep, curt, like rumbling thunder in the den, and so familiar that Dana wanted to cry. “Get some coffee and bring me a danish!”

  “Yes, sir!” Lillian called back, and with a reassuring pat, she urged Dana toward the open door of the den. “He doesn’t bite, remember,” she said sotto voce.

  “The hell he doesn’t,” Adrian answered. “Coffee, Lillian!”

  “I’m going, I’m going, you don’t have to yell….”

  Dana stiffened her spine and walked numbly into the familiar cozy room with its Mediterranean decor, the huge oak desk, the leather sofa, and the big easy chair that bore the imprint of a big, husky body. He was standing with one arm resting on the mantle. There was a fire in the hearth to ease the chill of the room, and he was punching at it with a black poker.

  “Sit down,” he said without looking at her.

  She perched herself on the very edge of the sofa, her purse crumpled and smudged under her restless fingers as she watched the way Adrian’s dark hair gleamed in the firelight, a half-smile on the curve of his mouth. The ruby ring emphasized the darkness of that hair-sprinkled masculine hand that held the poker.

  He put the poker away and turned to her. His fingers searched in his pocket for a cigarette. He dug out a slim gold lighter to put a flame to it, and inhaled deeply. His eyes narrowed on her wan face.

  “Three years,” he said quietly, “and I don’t think you’ve been out of my mind for two days in all that time. Last month there was a feature story by you in that Florida magazine. It brought you back into my life with a vengeance, and I knew I had to see you again.”

  “What for?” she asked bitterly. “You had the picture.”

  “I could answer that question in a way that would turn you red from the roots of your hair all the way to your ankles,” he said with a dark smile. “Can you still blush, I wonder, or have you lost the ability as well as your innocence?”

  “I haven’t lost either,”
she wanted to say, but Lillian came in with a tray of coffee and pastries, saving her a reply. By the time it was served and Lillian had gone again, the subject was forgotten.

  “How long will I be here?” she asked dully.

  His eyes studied her face intensely. “That’s hard to say. Months, perhaps,” he told her.

  “I’d like a straight answer.”

  “You’re getting one.” He leaned back in his chair, the coffee cup in one hand, a cigarette smoking in the other. “I need a secretary.”

  “Not me.”

  “Don’t bet on it.” His eyes narrowed at her gasp of apprehension. “Charlie said Jack’s been handling you with kid gloves ever since you covered some disaster last year, and he thinks you need a rest leave.”

  She blanched. “I don’t…!”

  “On the other hand,” he continued calmly, “I lost my secretary about three weeks ago, and I can’t replace him with just anyone. I need someone I can trust,” he added deliberately. “And I doubt very seriously you’d make the mistake of betraying me a second time.”

  “I’m a reporter, not a…”

  “You’re not a reporter any more,” he said coolly. “I called Charlie this morning.”

  “My job…” she croaked.

  “…is being advertised in this morning’s paper.”

  She jumped to her feet. “You can’t do this!”

  “The hell I can’t. Sit down,” he said, the old curt authority in his voice.

  She collapsed down onto the soft leather. “Will you really take revenge this far?” she cried. “You don’t understand, I can’t stay here, away from Miami…!”

  “You won’t leave this house until I tell you to get out,” he said coldly. “If you walk out that door, I’ll break you. You won’t ever get another job.” He said it calmly, without ever raising his voice. And he meant it, every word.

  Her eyes closed against the nightmare that was happening. “Please, I have to go home…!”

  “This is home for the next six months.” He finished the rest of his coffee. “You’ll draw a salary, you’ll be the private secretary you only pretended to be once before.” His eyes narrowed, glittering, as he watched her reaction. “I want you for six months, Persephone. You caused me a hell of a lot of trouble, and I want recompense.”

  “I…I’ll get a salary?” she managed weakly, her spirit completely gone as she realized just how completely she was at his mercy.

  “More than you deserve,” he replied, dropping heavily into the armchair across from her. He crossed his legs and watched her through narrowed eyes. “Enough, probably, to support your lover.”

  Her mouth trembled, and not for all the world would she have spoiled his vivid image of her. “Will I have…days off?”

  “Occasionally.”

  “Can I go home…occasionally?”

  “To see him? I don’t think so.”

  Her eyes went misty. Mother…! “Oh, you can’t…!”

  “I can. I have.” His dark eyes backed her down. “You owe me!”

  She closed her eyes. Six months. To see him, be near him, be hated by him. Six months. Maybe she could get Jack and the boys to see about Mrs. Meredith. But six months…!

  “I don’t seem to have a choice,” she whispered.

  “In point of fact,” he replied mildly, “you don’t have any.”

  Her face jerked up rebelliously, one last flash of fury. “You damned Yankee!” she threw at him, referring pointedly to his Chicago origins, to the accent that lingered after half a lifetime spent in this city.

  He actually grinned, his white teeth flashing in that dark, arrogant face. “You damned little rebel,” he shot right back at her. “Welcome to hell, Persephone.”

  Her teeth ground together. “Thank you, Mr. Devil.”

  A glint of admiration touched his dark eyes before the mockery and anger came back into them.

  “Still not afraid of me, Dana?” he asked softly, and it was the first time he’d ever used her real first name.

  “No.”

  “That was why I hired you three years ago,” he told her. “Because you’d fight me.”

  “You’re the only person I ever have fought with,” she returned with a glare. “I get along with most people. It isn’t in my nature to…”

  “You don’t know what your nature is yet,” he said. “We’re going to work on that. I think your education has some gaps that need filling in.”

  “School’s out,” she said shortly.

  “Just beginning,” he corrected. “It’s time we got around to discussing the more mundane aspects of your new job.”

  Somehow, she got through that hour, listening to his deep, measured voice, only half hearing the instructions. It was three years ago, and she was in awe of him again. Involuntarily, her eyes traced every line of his face while he spoke, loving him all over again. How had she lived those years without seeing him, hearing him? How had she managed to survive, when just to be in the same room with him was all that she needed of paradise?

  In between keeping those soulful glances hidden from him, she managed to digest the better part of her new duties. It was like old times. To stand between him and the outside world. To protect his privacy from intrusion. To make his appointments and reservations and see that he kept them, to take dictation any time of the night or day, to keep his social calendar and be his memory. And do it without any lip. And when he added that, she glared at him, and he grinned for the second time since her return.

  He left her with three letters to type and a backlog of appointments to confirm or cancel, and she didn’t move from the room until it was time to clean up for the evening meal.

  She took a quick shower and dressed in a beige jersey dress that clung to her “skinny” figure, and put her hair up in its familiar bun. In between wondering how she was going to look after her mother from this distance, and how harsh Devereaux’s revenge was going to be, she felt the old, sweet fires beginning to kindle inside her. The sudden shock of seeing him gave her fluttery sensations in the pit of her stomach, and made her face glow with the bright flame of pleasure. She thrilled to the sound of his voice, deep and masculine and quiet. Her eyes closed as she sank into the armchair by her fireplace. Why did this house feel so much like home? It had, from the first time she saw it, so many years ago, big and imposing and immovable—just like its master. With a sigh, she got up and glanced at her pale face in the mirror, dominated by wide, soft brown eyes, and shook her head. She put a touch of pale pink lipstick on her mouth and went downstairs.

  She felt his dark eyes on her while she tried to eat the delicious meal Lillian had prepared—which tasted vaguely like cardboard under the circumstances.

  “Is your steak overdone, Meredith?” he asked across the short distance that separated them, sitting there like some dark monarch in his faultlessly tailored gold-patterned silk shirt and brown close-fitting slacks. The shirt was open just enough over his broad chest to be sensual, letting the dark mat of hair that covered the unyielding muscles peek out.

  “My steak is just fine, thank you,” she replied smoothly. “I’m…not very hungry.”

  He lifted his coffee up to his chiseled, wide mouth.

  “Aren’t you? I wonder why?” His lips curved as he studied her, his eyes narrow and glittering so that it was impossible to tell their color.

  She glanced at him accusingly. “Are you enjoying yourself, Mr. Devereaux?” she asked quietly. “This must be something like sticking a sharp pin into a butterfly to see how much pain it can take.”

  His dark, beautiful hand curved around his glass and he studied the burgundy shimmer of the wine under the light from the chandelier. “Pain can create a kind of pleasure, Meredith,” he said, and his eyes met her levelly. “It can even enhance the pleasure. You can’t make wine without crushing the grape.”

  “You must know a lot about crushing,” she murmured.

  “I do,” he said matter-of-factly, leaning back in his chair with
one arm curved over its back, straining the silk shirt across the powerful, broad muscles of his chest.

  She dragged her eyes away from him, back down to her plate. “What…what about the new production method I was supposed to do a story on?” she asked. “Was that part of the fiction, too?”

  “No. You’ll get a look at that before you leave here. And a story, Meredith,” he said contemptuously. “My God, do you bleed ink? Is everything you do just part of the damned job?”

  She flinched at the violence in his tone. “They say that a good reporter can pull copy out of the worst disaster,” she said in a subdued tone. Her eyes closed with the memory of the flood. “God help us, we can, too,” she added in a murmur.

  He set the wine glass down with a thud and stood up. “As much as I’d love to continue this fascinating conversation,” he said, “I’ve got a date. Don’t choke on your wine, Persephone.”

  She watched him go, slinging his jacket over one arm, his step even, ruthless. He was in superb physical condition, an athlete who thrived on sports, and there wasn’t a spare ounce of flesh on that broad, powerful body. He walked with a leonine grace, and she felt a stab of jealousy as she heard him go out the door. A date. A woman. She stared with blank eyes at the steak on her plate. And why not, he wasn’t over the hill. He was still a virile, utterly masculine man. Naturally there would be women. There were women when she worked for him. It had hurt then, and it hurt now. She didn’t have the sophistication, or the charm to catch a man like Adrian Devereaux, and she knew it. That hurt most of all. With a tiny shudder, she pushed the plate aside and left the table.

  “The Mister gone already?” Lillian asked as Dana started up the stairs to her room.

  She managed a weary smile for the older woman. “In a blaze of glory,” she laughed.

  “As usual. It’s that Fayre Braunns again, I’ll bet,” Lillian said darkly. “None of my business, of course, but that blonde dragon gives me goose bumps.”

  “She’s his…girlfriend?” Dana asked.

  “His mistress,” Lillian corrected, with a smile at the shock on the other woman’s face. “He’s all man, honey. You can’t expect him to be a saint, can you?”