by JoAnn Ross
She extracted a folded piece of paper from beneath a pile of scented French lingerie. "You may be interested in this."
Curious in spite of his building frustration, Zach snatched the paper from her hand, his heart clenching as he read the three typed paragraphs.
"This is a memo from Nelson Montague."
"To his Hong Kong banker," Miranda agreed with a sly smile that made Zach's flesh crawl. "Revealing his plans for Lord's. After he takes over, of course."
Zach shook his head. "It's insane to think he can turn a thriving upscale chain like Lord's into Wal-Mart."
"More like Loehmans," Miranda corrected. She was smiling like a sleek cat who'd just swallowed a particularly succulent canary. The only thing missing was the yellow feathers sticking out from between those glossy vermilion lips. "Seconds, factory overruns, clothing that didn't sell because the sizes were too large or too small, or just didn't survive the fleeting time span of fashion fads."
"I know the kind of store you mean," Zach countered sharply. "And it damn well doesn't belong on Rodeo Drive."
"Oh, he intends to spin the Beverly Hills store off and sell it to Saks," she informed him, reminding Zach that in her own way, Miranda was no gorgeous blond bimbo. On the contrary, she had a very good head for business when it suited her.
"As for the others," she revealed, "buyers are already waiting in the wings."
"He intends to dismantle the entire chain?"
Which would, Zach thought, effectively put an end to the Alexandra Lyons Blue Bayou collection.
"That's the plan," she said cheerfully. "But all's well that ends well. The price per share he's offering will make the stockholders very, very rich."
"If they sell."
"Oh, enough will sell, Zachary. There's no limit to what people will do to make a quick profit." Her smile reached all the way to her eyes at the thought of all that lovely money. "Nelson taught me that."
"And did he also send you to me with this memo?" That was the part that didn't make any sense. The Australian raider was not known for tipping his hand.
"Of course not. Actually, I confess to being a bit naughty. I stole it from his briefcase while he was sleeping."
"And now you're selling the information to the highest bidder."
"In a way. This is my trump card, Zachary. We both know I hold the deciding stock. If I vote with you and Aunt Eleanor, Lord's will continue as is. If I choose to vote with Nelson…" She shrugged. "Well, I believe the memo's more than clear as to his plans."
"You realize this would kill your aunt."
"Now who's being overly dramatic? Auntie's a tough old bird. If she could survive the murders and the kidnapping and being widowed, she'd undoubtedly survive losing her beloved company."
"You're sure of that, are you?"
"Actually, I'm that sure of you, darling. As much as you'd love to set up housekeeping with your little chit of a designer, you possess the fatal flaw of loyalty.
"You won't even attempt to divorce me, because if you do, I'll play that trump card. Then we can both see exactly how much dear Auntie's heart can take."
Listening to her hateful words, watching her hard expression, Zach wondered how he could have been so blinded by lust not to have seen that Miranda was more than calculating. She was either very sick or very evil.
That idea sent another shock wave ricocheting through him. "Are you responsible for what happened to Alex today?"
"What are you talking about?" Her surprise appeared genuine.
"Did you have anything to do with that accident?"
"Are you accusing me of tampering with the brakes or something on your lover's borrowed car?"
"You want Alex gone."
"Of course I do. But gracious, Zach, I certainly don't have to stoop to murder to get rid of such an insignificant little problem. Besides," she pointed out, "if I even understood automobile mechanics, which I don't, I'd never risk breaking a nail."
She held out her hands as proof of her innocence, displaying ten long, perfectly manicured fingernails that sparkled like rubies.
"You could have gotten someone else to do your dirty work."
"But I already have, darling." She came and stood right in front of him and ran one of those ruby nails along the grimly set line of his lips. "I've got you." She pressed a kiss against his hard mouth, then laughing, left the room.
Cursing viciously, Zach crumpled the stolen memo into a ball and flung it across the room. As his Grand-mère Deveraux would have told him, he'd made his thorny bed; now it was up to him to lie in it.
Even if that meant he was destined to spend his nights alone. Thinking of a woman he didn't dare have.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Although it was difficult, Alex and Zach managed to keep from giving Miranda any reason to sell her stock to the Australian corporate raider. Returning to the rigid self-restraint they'd both exercised for so long, they tried to pretend to be content with stolen kisses behind closed office doors.
They had hoped, in the beginning, that they might steal some private time together, but Alex grew increasingly aware of a man who seemed to be wherever she went. A man who was so unremarkable she might not have noticed him if Zach hadn't warned her that Miranda might hire a private detective.
Well, she obviously had, and although Alex was certain the poor guy must be bored stiff by her uneventful lifestyle, she also had to award this round to Miranda. Because while Miranda might not have any compromising videos or incriminating photographs to look at, she had effectively managed to stop Alex and Zach from making love again.
Alex was in her Venice bungalow, cutting out a piece of brightly flowered silk and singing along with Madonna, who was claiming to be a material girl, when the doorbell rang.
"Damn," she muttered, putting the shears aside. She was working on the dress she planned to wear for the Chicago debut and her mind was constantly filled with design changes. Her outfit had to be absolutely perfect. It had to display her talents, her individuality, her spirit. It had to speak to all those potential buyers, not to mention knocking the socks off the characteristically blasé fashion press.
Which was, Alex admitted as she looked through the peephole at the uniformed man, one helluva lot of responsibility to heap on a yard and a half of silk.
"Ms. Lyons?" he asked when she opened the door.
"Yes."
He handed her an envelope. "If you'll read this, ma'am, I think it should explain what I'm doing here."
Alex recognized Zach's bold scrawl immediately. She skimmed the brief note, which didn't tell her anything except that an emergency had come up and she was to go with the driver.
"What kind of emergency?" she asked.
"I don't know, ma'am. I'm only following orders."
Trusting Zach implicitly and worried enough that she wasn't about to waste time arguing, she grabbed up her purse and followed the driver out to the car.
They drove through the valley to the small Ontario airport, where she found the Lord's executive jet waiting for her. As she entered the cabin, she was surprised not to find Zach waiting aboard. "Isn't Mr. Deveraux joining us?" she asked the steward who welcomed her aboard.
"No, Ms. Lyons. You're our only passenger." He gave her a bright, professional smile and instructed her to fasten her seat belt. "Mr. Deveraux instructed a bottle of champagne to be opened as soon as we're airborne."
"Where are we going?"
"To Phoenix."
A little more than an hour later, Alex was being ushered into a luxurious suite at the five-star Arizona Biltmore Hotel.
"I've been going crazy waiting for you," Zach said in greeting her. His broad hands stroked her face, as his clever lips skimmed her cheek.
As always, her heart took a little leap at the sight of him. "This is a wonderful idea. But is it wise?"
"Miranda's in London."
"But that horrid little man she hired—"
"Is probably posting bail by now."
"Bail?"
"Loitering is against the law," he said. "Seems one of your neighbors got tired of seeing him parked across the street and anonymously called the cops, who weren't very pleased to learn that a guy whose P.I. license had been yanked six months ago was hanging around their jurisdiction with a concealed weapon in his possession."
"How did you know about his license?"
Zach shrugged. "You'd be amazed what you can find out with a computer these days."
"That was very clever of you," she allowed. "But there's just one little problem."
"What's that?"
"Your driver didn't give me time to pack."
His hands shaped her curves from shoulder to thigh. "Don't worry, sweetheart. For the weekend I've got in mind, you're not going to need any clothes."
She laughed and twined her arms around his neck. "Oh, goody."
The first time, when he'd taken her so ruthlessly in his car, all his hunger had come clawing out of him. Now, as he kissed her temple and breathed in her scent, Zach felt the knot in his gut beginning to loosen.
"You have to tell me what you like." He nibbled on her ear as his hands moved up and down her back. "What you want."
His caress was making her bones melt. She closed her eyes and swayed against him. "I want you to kiss me."
He complied, kissing her slowly from one corner of her lips to the other. "Like this?"
"That's an excellent start," she whispered. Her breath was like a soft summer breeze against his mouth.
"That's all it was, baby," he promised. "A start."
His tongue created a ring of fire as it circled her parted lips. A matching warmth flickered between her thighs. "Has anyone ever told you you're a very good kisser, Zachary?"
"Someone has now." He deepened the kiss, keeping it soft and gentle for a long, glorious time.
Entranced by the way he could make her float with only his mouth, Alex felt as if she'd fallen into a bed of feathers. Or clouds.
"Better than good," she declared. "You, Zachary Deveraux, are world-class."
"And you're prejudiced."
Seduced by the slow, deep kisses himself, he lifted her into his arms as tenderly as if she were a piece of Eleanor's precious crystal, rather than a flesh-and-blood woman. No man had ever treated her with such care.
"I won't break," she murmured as he placed her gently on the bed. The mattress sighed as he lay down beside her.
"I know. That's one of the things I love about you." He took off her outer clothing, treating each piece of revealed flesh to a sweet, seductive torment with hands that were heartbreakingly gentle, with a mouth that was warm and sensuous. "You can be strong and soft at the same time. Like steel wrapped in satin."
A delicious time later, he'd worked his way down to her teddy—a brief confection of silk and midnight lace.
And then his clothes were gone, as well, and he held her against him.
Even as her mind became wrapped in a gauzy pleasure, a tiny portion of her brain reminded her that this was supposed to be an activity for two people.
"I want to make love to you." She lifted her hand to his chest.
"Later." With his eyes on her, he kissed her fingertips individually. "This first time is for you, Alex. So relax. And just take."
His hands felt so good, stroking, soothing, calming, that she could not summon the strength to argue. So she closed her eyes and gave herself up to these shimmering sensations and allowed Zach to set the pace.
He tasted her and sent her floating. He savored her and made her fly. He murmured his love for her over and over again and made her melt. Though his hands remained gentle, there was a quiet, unyielding strength beneath his tender touch.
His lips took a slow, erotic journey, hot against her glowing flesh. "Promise me something," he murmured.
As his mouth dampened the ebony silk covering her breasts, Alex writhed in mindless pleasure. "Anything."
The word that shuddered from between her trembling lips was the truth. Alex was willing to do whatever Zach wanted. As the treacherous assault continued, she was willing to go wherever he took her.
"Promise me you'll never quit wearing this sexy underwear." Zach knew, without the faintest shadow of a doubt, that the sight of Alexandra clad in her skimpy French lingerie would still excite him when they were in their nineties.
"I promise," she gasped as his teeth tugged on a nipple.
When his palms pressed against the insides of her quivering legs, she willingly opened to him, knowing, even through the mists clouding her mind, that she'd never been more vulnerable. Not even that horrifying time with Debord.
And yet, as his teeth nipped at the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs, as his tongue soothed away the marks, as his heated breath warmed her feminine core through the silk her desire had already dampened, Alex had never felt safer. Because Zach loved her. And love, she discovered, was stronger than desire, more powerful than need. It was everything she'd been waiting for without having known she'd been waiting; Zach was everything she'd been yearning for, without having known she'd been yearning.
He peeled the silken barrier down her body with deft, expert hands. The same hands created trails of shimmering pleasure through the downy golden red curls at the juncture of her thighs. When his mouth settled on her throbbing, swollen clitoris, she felt a blaze of hot pleasure.
Zach slipped a finger inside her and found her warm and wet. "You are so incredibly soft." His words vibrated against the ultrasensitive flesh he was kissing as deeply, as erotically, as he'd kissed her mouth. "And sweet."
Nearly weeping, she arched against him, trusting him implicitly, loving him wholly. Her skin was so sensitized that the mere brush of a fingertip made her burn. Every nerve ending in her body had contracted into one tight, hot ball. As she struggled to fill her lungs with air, the ball imploded, leaving her limp, boneless and dazed.
She's so responsive! Zach thought. So sweet. And she's mine. All mine!
He held her trembling body tightly against his. He buried his face in her hair and thanked whatever fates had brought this woman to him.
She remained safely in his arms until the shudders racking her body ceased. She wanted to tell Zach everything she was feeling, but her mind, still numb from such exhilarating pleasure, could not think of the words.
All she could do was show him. She turned in his arms and pressed her lips against the pulse at the base of his throat.
"I love you," she whispered. She slid down his body, her mouth blazing a hot, wet trail that bisected his torso. "Love you." Her hands slid across his shoulders, down his slick sides. "Love you."
As she had done earlier, Zach willingly surrendered his power, allowing Alex to set the pace. As he had done earlier, she drew it out, reveling in the feel of his steely muscles clenching beneath her exploring hands, his quick intake of breath when she blew a soft, teasing breath across his taut stomach, his ragged groan as her lips embraced his rock-hard shaft.
Heat was thundering through him. Her sensuous tongue was stroking his throbbing cock from balls to tip in a way that threatened to blow whatever self-control he still possessed to smithereens.
"Honey," he groaned, grabbing handfuls of her thick bright hair, "if you don't stop right now, I'm going to…Oh, sweet Christ, Alex…"
He felt the pressure building at the base of his spine. Just in time, he pulled away, yanked her into his arms and held her tightly against him, drinking in deep gulps of breath as he struggled for control. When the storm was successfully, albeit temporarily, banked, Zach rolled her onto her back and braced himself over her. With hands that were far from steady, he pushed the tousled red-gold waves away from her face. "I love you."
He slid into her, heat to heat, flesh to flesh, male to female. With a sigh and a murmur, she opened to him, enfolding him with absolute generosity.
Later, as she lay in his arms, waiting for her heartbeat to return to normal, Alex, who'd sworn to herself she would not complain, murmured, "I wish w
e could stay like this forever."
"I know." Zach sighed, a deep breath thick with regret and lingering frustration. "Hang in there, sweetheart. I've got a plan. The only problem is it's going to take some time to pull it off."
Having no other choice, Alex trusted him. And waited.
* * *
The little girl huddled in the back of the closet, her eyes squeezed tightly shut as if that might keep the monsters that lurked in the dark at bay.
Those same monsters had killed her mommy and her daddy. The memory of all that blood remained riveted in her mind's eye, a dark crimson flag that would not go away.
She'd feared that the monsters would kill her, too, but then Rosa had swept her up and carried her out of the house. Clad only in nightgowns, feet bare, they'd made their escape.
Rosa had cried loudly as the car sped through the black night; Anna had not. The horror of what she'd witnessed had rendered her mute.
And then it was day again and they were hiding in the hotel room, awaiting the telephone call that Rosa assured Anna would fix everything.
But the call never came. Instead, the monsters found them. And then they murdered Rosa, just as they'd killed her parents.
Because they'd locked her away in this dark closet, Anna hadn't seen the monsters kill her nanny, the woman who had always seemed more like a mother to her than her own glamorous one.
But Anna had heard Rosa's desperate pleas. And even putting both hands over her ears had not kept her from hearing Rosa's broken sobs. Or her bloodcurdling scream.
And then, finally, even more terrifying, a long, empty silence descended.
The little girl lost all sense of time or place. She only knew, with every fiber of her tense young body, that the monsters—those same ones who'd lurked beneath her bed every night just waiting for Rosa to turn off the light—were still out there.
Just on the other side of the door.
Waiting to eat her, the same way the big bad wolf had gobbled up little Red Riding Hood's grandmother.
And so, unable to do anything else, she hunkered deeper into her fear and waited.
Hours later, Anna was jolted from a restless sleep by the sound of her own screams. At the same time, the closet door was flung opened, flooding the small cubicle with blinding light.
