by Diana Palmer
He seemed to freeze. His eyelids came down, shuttering his black eyes. He stopped dancing to stare at her, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
She threw back her head and laughed, as if she couldn’t have been more amused, as if her heart weren’t breaking in half. She pulled away, shaking her head. “Oh, Marc, you’re priceless, really you are. Thanks, but no thanks. I’m in my right mind now. You won’t find me such an easy mark again.”
She moved away from him in the middle of the dance floor and went back to Joe, who got up from his seat, beaming.
“What did you say to him?” he asked, nodding toward Marc, who was striding toward the bar.
“Some very naughty things,” she whispered, leaning toward him. “Say, can we go home tomorrow? I know it’s the Fourth and all, but I’ve got so many irons in the fire. Would you mind?”
“Not one bit,” he said. He grinned. “I’ll have the chopper here by eight a.m. How’s that for service?”
“Very nice,” she said, resting her chin in her hands as she smiled dreamily at him. Wouldn’t this put a thorn in Marc’s ego?
For the rest of the evening she stuck to Joe, flirting with him, watching him open up to her. He was a nice man, she decided. He surely understood why she was flirting with him, because he ate it up and returned it. And Marc simmered, with a puzzled Lana dancing stiffly in his arms the whole evening.
The Smiths left early, and during a brief visit to the ladies’ room Gaby ran into Lana and found out why the couple had vanished.
“Steffie got quite smashed.” Lana sighed as she touched up her lipstick in the mirror. “Poor little fish, she thought Dave was Midas, and now she’s found out that he can’t keep her in proper style. I think she’d like to leave him, but he keeps promising her more and more.”
“Does Marc pay him that well?” Gaby probed delicately.
“I don’t know.” Lana shrugged. “He doesn’t talk about salaries, but I got a peek at the annual report and figured it out once. He makes about the same as Joe—enough to live well but not extravagantly. Joe must really stretch his budget, what with the Mercedes and the other cars he runs. To say nothing of his clothes! Marc thinks he must be in debt up to his eyebrows. Oh, well, it’s not my problem. Say, did you see that cute little Middle Eastern guy with the red bow tie? Isn’t he adorable? He’s a prince or some such thing. He just invited me to be his guest for as long as I’d like to stay!” She laughed gaily. “I think I’ll say yes and see what Marc says. He’s been broody all night, ever since you left him in the middle of the dance floor. Say, honey, did you have a fight over Joe?” she asked curiously.
“Yes,” Gaby lied, to avoid any further questions.
Lana shrugged and winked at her. “Don’t worry, he’ll blow over. He loves Joe. He’ll give in. Must run. Ta, darling.”
Gaby stared after her curiously. If Joe didn’t make a great deal of money, how did he stretch it to cover his luxuries? Now she was more curious than ever.
She didn’t see Marc again that evening. He and Lana left before she and Joe did, and tonight Joe kept away from the liquor. She got to bed fairly early and was up by seven the next morning. When she got into the dining room, it was to find Dave Smith awake and dressed, too, and apparently in the middle of a furious argument with Joe. They were speaking in hushed whispers, but they stopped in midsentence when Gaby walked in.
She hesitated. “Am I interrupting something?” she asked innocently. “I just wanted some coffee.”
“No, no, you’re not interrupting anything,” Dave said, smiling a little too brightly. “Excuse me, I’ve got to see about Steffie. She wasn’t feeling well this morning.”
“She never feels well,” Joe said loudly, watching the older man leave. “She’s a lush!”
“Joe!” she whispered, shocked, as Smith turned around and glared before vanishing down the hall.
“I’m sorry,” Joe grumbled. “She’s got a big mouth. He needs to...” He seemed to realize what he was saying and flushed. “Nothing. Come on, we’ll have breakfast and then we’ll get going.”
“Is anyone else going with us?”
“Not likely.” He laughed. “Lana and Marc are off somewhere together, and the Smiths will spend what’s left of the day fighting, as usual. We won’t be missed.”
Gaby’s mind had frozen on that remark about Lana and Marc, and her face gave away her torment. Joe smiled grimly to himself and offered her some coffee. An hour later Marc and Lana had not turned up, and Gaby’s pride was devastated.
She and Joe flew back to New York City. It was the end of the holiday. And the end of her dreams about Marc.
* * *
GABY WENT BACK to work on the Motocraft account just after the holidays, but she felt a sadness that had nothing to do with working again. She was strung out emotionally from the strain of being around Marc and knowing what he really thought of her. She couldn’t understand why he was so adamant that she stay away from Joe.
On the other hand, Joe was rapidly becoming her biggest problem. He began to hang around the studio all day while she was shooting. He was at her apartment every night without fail, and when he wasn’t there, he was phoning. He sulked if she talked to other men. He began to change from the pleasant, nice man she’d known to a brooding, secretive man with a possessiveness that bordered on obsession. He drank more and more. And she found herself becoming actually afraid of him.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked one morning when he waylaid her at the studio. “I feel like you’re trying to smother me, Joe.”
He stared at her. “What do you mean, smother you? I’m just hanging around like I always have. Feeding on crumbs.” He laughed coldly. His dark gaze ran over her like hungry hands. “Boy, you’re something, Gaby. My girl.”
“Listen, we’ve had this argument a hundred times,” she said gently. “I’m not anybody’s girl.”
“Not even Marc’s?” he asked sarcastically. He cocked his head and stuffed his hands into his pockets, watching her color. “You’re in love with him. A blind man could see that. But he’s got Lana, and you’ll never get him back, Gaby. He’s a lost cause. So it looks like you’ll have to settle for me.”
“I don’t love Marc,” she lied.
“I saw how you looked at him when we were at the beach,” he shot back. “You practically drooled every time he walked past you. What went on behind my back, hmm? What did you and my big brother do together that made fires leap between you every time you looked at each other?”
“Nothing!”
“He hates you, did you know?” he asked cuttingly. “He thinks you’re a tramp, Gaby.”
Her eyes closed. “Look, I have to work...”
“He told me so,” he continued, his eyes hot and wild and unexpectedly cruel. “He doesn’t like me seeing you, and it isn’t because he’s jealous. He thinks you’re a bad influence. He thinks you’re leading me to hell.”
“But I’m not!” she said, confused. “You know I’m not!”
He shrugged. “God knows how he got the idea. He wants me to stay away from you. He says you’re no good for me. But I told him we were in love.”
Her face went paper white. “You told him that?”
“Well, maybe not in so many words. But Marc had always been one to jump to conclusions.”
“I’m not going to marry you,” she said, trying to make a joke of it. “Stop teasing.”
“You think it’s teasing?” He blinked and laughed oddly. “I... I’m sorry Gaby. I was out of line. Sometimes lately I say the weirdest things. Even I don’t know why I say them. Forgive me. You look tired lately. Let’s go out to dinner tonight.”
She wanted to refuse but then thought better of it. She didn’t want to be serious. She felt only friendship for him, he knew that, but he was acting wildly. Anyway,
going out with him was better than having him hang around the house constantly. Her father’s patience was wearing out; he complained that he never had a moment’s peace lately. And neither did Gaby. She had to put a stop to this. She felt sorry for Joe; he was beginning to look really bad. Drawn and pale and thin. But pity wasn’t going to help him in the long run, and she couldn’t let him own her because she felt sorry for him. She’d have to find some way to let him down easy.
“Okay. Pick me up about six,” she said. “And now, how about going to your own job and letting me work?” she added firmly.
He hesitated. “Well, I guess I could go see how the auditors are doing,” he said reluctantly. He laughed, his eyes far away and bitter. “See how deep they’re digging my grave.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing,” he muttered. “Anyway, it was worth it. I got you.”
He turned and walked away, leaving her gaping after him, curious and nervous and just a little apprehensive about how he was going to react when she told him tonight that she wouldn’t see him again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“I’M GOING TO become permanently attached to this thing eventually, you realize,” Gaby told the newest photographer, Ed Reddy, as he finished shooting the last of the Motocraft, Inc., still photos she was under contract to do. All the commercials had finally been shot.
She stretched on the hood of the 1956 blue-and-white Chevrolet and laid back lazily, smiling brilliantly at him as he took her picture over and over again. Her long hair cascaded over the fender, her black-and-white bikini giving her an exotic look.
“Nice, nice. That’s great. Smile, look at me, wet your lips, that’s it, that’s it,” he rattled off, moving, weaving, shooting. And then he was through. “Okay, got it!” he said finally, standing erect, a rakish grin on his face.
“Thank goodness.” She sighed. “I was beginning to feel like part of this glorious thing. Who owns it, anyway?”
“I do.”
The deep, gravelly voice was unmistakable. She sat up quickly, hating the racing of her heart as Marc came out from behind the lights with a smoking cigarette in his big hand. She hadn’t seen him since the holidays at the beach house in the Hamptons, and the very sight of him made her blood run hot and wild. He looked gloriously tan, his hair neatly trimmed. He was dressed in a navy blue suit that had probably cost the earth, with a white shirt that emphasized his darkness and a tie that had a multicolored stripe. He looked devastating, and she wished that he could have grown fat and bald with age, so that she could wonder what she’d ever seen in him.
“Neat car.” Ed grinned. “Trade you my motorcycle for it.”
“Sorry,” Marc returned. “It’s been in the family too long.”
“I’m going for coffee. Can I bring you back a cup?”
Marc shook his head, a smile on his face, but his eyes were cold and hard and staring at Gaby.
“Gaby?” Ed asked.
“Yes, please. Black, no cream. Thanks,” she managed to say.
“No problem. Back in a few.”
Ed went out and closed the door of the studio, leaving Gaby alone with Marc. A feeling of dread overcame Gaby. Judging by the grim look in Marc’s eyes, she knew he was out for blood. Gaby swallowed her fear, determined not to show it. If he’d listen, perhaps she could confide in him, tell him how worried she was about Joe.
He moved closer, touching the fender beside her leg. “You don’t remember it, do you, Gaby?” he asked without looking at her.
“Should I?”
“It was in the garage. I never took you riding in it; there was never time. But you saw it. It was red then. All red.”
She did remember it, but she didn’t want him to know that. She started to slide off the car, and he kept her in place with a bold, careless hand on her upper thigh.
“Stop that,” she said in a faltering voice.
He moved his hand, but she didn’t like the look in his eyes. She didn’t understand the anger and contempt in them. “You can drop the puritan act now. And don’t get your hopes up, honey.”
She glared at him. “Well, I know you’re not here to pat me on the back, so you might as well get it out of your system. It’s what Joe told you about me, isn’t it?”
He cocked his dark head warily. “Why else would I come to see you?” he asked. “Look Joe’s been acting strangely lately, and I’m worried about him. My guess is that his problems have something to do with you, so I’m going to put it to you bluntly. If you like working, you’ll stop seeing him.”
“Don’t you think I can see that something’s wrong with Joe. He looks bad and even acts irrationally at times. But it’s not my fault. It’s not anything I’m doing.” He looked bad, that was true, but Gaby couldn’t help it. Joe seemed almost to be living in a fantasy world, and many of his fantasies seemed to have to do with her. He wouldn’t talk about Marc, he brooded about his job and he’d tried every way possible to deepen his relationship with Gaby. He couldn’t seem to accept the fact that she didn’t have any romantic interest in him. He wouldn’t listen.
There was something disquieting about Joe lately, about the way he behaved. She sensed that something had gone wrong in his life, something besides his failing friendship with her. She had a feeling that it had to do with Dave Smith, and she almost mentioned it to Marc. What a pity they weren’t on better terms. She had begun to suspect that Joe was mixed up in things that weren’t quite legitimate.
Marc’s eyes probed hers relentlessly. “You’d better not be taking him for a ride, Gaby.”
Her face registered surprise. “I’ve told you—”
“And I didn’t believe you,” he said, interrupting. He took a draw from the cigarette. “You lied to me.”
She stared at him blankly. “What?”
“I told you in the beginning not to get mixed up with Joe,” he said coldly. “I told you!”
“Yes, you told me, just like you tell everybody,” she returned fiercely. “Just like you told Joe, all his life, every single move to make!”
“I had to! I was all he had, in case you’ve forgotten,” he shot at her. “I raised him. I brought him up by myself. Of course I ordered him around! Without a firm hand he’d have gone wild!”
“Would he? Or did you just want complete control over him?” she returned. “I remember when we were dating, you were always calling to check on him, talking to his friends to make sure he was where he said he’d be. You wouldn’t let him breathe without instruction!”
“You don’t understand,” he said hotly. He moved closer. “Listen, there’s more to it than that.”
“So you keep saying.” She drew in a weary breath. “Look, boss, it’s late, I’m tired and I’d just love to go home and sleep for a year or so. Today I officially finished this account,” she added. “So you won’t have to suffer my presence anymore. That should make your day.”
“It will more likely make yours,” he returned grimly. “You’ve dodged me for two weeks. Ever since we made love.”
“We never made love!” she replied, her voice shaking. “You tried to seduce me. What were you going to do, Marc, seduce me and then tell Joe about it in detail?”
He glared at her with eyes that grew more fierce by the second. “What an opinion you have of me these days,” he said. “Is that what you think? That I would do that to a brother I love, even to save him from the likes of you?”
“What do you mean, the likes of me?” she replied furiously.
“A model. A high roller,” he forged ahead, forgetting the cigarette between his fingers. “It’s clear that Joe’s been acting wilder and wilder since he started seeing you. You and he have been seen together at the parties. Just what he needs, with a drinking problem, being dragged around to social water holes with you!”
“I didn’t drag him—”
“I’ll bet!” he said, cutting her off, his face hard with temper. “He told me he wouldn’t have done it, but you insisted. He said you liked showing him off to your friends.”
Her jaw dropped. Joe wouldn’t have said that. He wouldn’t have!
“Surprised that he told me?” he asked. “He told me a lot of stuff about you. Including the fact that you’re sleeping with him. So there was never any need to lie.”
She could hardly breathe. Surely Joe wouldn’t have lied so completely about their relationship.
“It’s just as well that this is your last day, Gaby,” he said coldly, and she saw the arrogance back in his eyes full force, the contempt. He looked at her as if he hated her. “Because I’d have moved heaven and earth to break that contract. It looks to me like you’re the worst thing that ever happened to Joe. And I swear, if he gets hurt because of you, I’ll break you into little pieces!”
The words stung. She stared at him helplessly. “Joe told you...all that?” Her voice faltered.
“We’re brothers,” he said. “Blood goes deeper than lust. You didn’t count on him telling me, did you? Swearing you were a virgin, baiting me with it. I shouldn’t have stopped that morning, Gaby,” he added cuttingly. “I should have kept on and found out the truth for myself. Maybe that would have been the best way to get you out of my life and Joe’s.”
“I’d have hated you even more than I already do!” she said, raging.
“You don’t hate me,” he said with a mirthless laugh. “You’re as hot for me now as you were at seventeen. That gives me satisfaction. It makes me feel just great, knowing that you want me and all you can have is Joe. I hope you think about how it could have been with me when you’re in his arms, Gaby. I hope you burn and keep on burning. Because you’ll never have me now. I don’t want my brother’s leavings, any more than he would have wanted mine.”
“You conceited animal!” she screamed.
“Oh, my, what a temper.” He laughed at her. “Didn’t your plans for revenge work out the way you wanted? You came back into my life a famous model, a woman desired by thousands of men. But I still don’t want you, despite your new look, and that hurts, doesn’t it?”
