Pushed to the Limit (Quid Pro Quo 1)

by Patricia Rosemoor

CHAPTER FIVE

  NO SOONER HAD the question occurred to her than Sydney heard a car pull up into the driveway. Slipping the token into an outside pocket of her shoulder bag, she rounded the house to see who had arrived.

  Martha’s white Porsche stood in the drive and the woman herself was pulling a large suitcase from the trunk. She’d changed from the red silk sundress to a gold lame jumpsuit with giant beaded shoulders and a plunging neckline. The outfit made Sydney believe Martha had special plans for the evening. Good. Then she could spend the time alone. Unfortunately, peace of mind was not yet hers.

  “Planning on staying long?” she asked, trying to keep her voice friendly.

  Martha gave her a haughty, knowing look. “You’d like me to leave, wouldn’t you? So you could get hold of Kenneth’s assets without a struggle?”

  “I don’t want to fight. I don’t want–”

  ”Well, I could care less what you want. You have a fight on your hands you didn’t count on, you little gold-digger, whether or not you’re ready for one.”

  Sydney’s mouth gaped open as Martha pushed by, practically hitting her with the suitcase. She stood staring at the rude woman. She’d been about to say she didn’t want anything of Kenneth’s but a sentimental keepsake, a reminder of the love they’d shared if for a short time, but now she’d bite her tongue before saying so. Martha Lord would merely laugh and deride her.

  “Oh, by the way,” Martha said, “I’ve already moved your things out of my bedroom.”

  “Your bedroom?”

  “The one you’ve been using without my permission.” Martha set down the suitcase in front of the door which she quickly unlocked. “I personally chose every object in that room.” She threw open the door so that it strained against its hinges. “I’m not about to give them over to some upstart, for no matter how short a time you’ll be here.”

  Once having met Kenneth’s sister, Sydney figured she should have guessed why the bedroom had seemed so repugnant. The decor was every bit as offensive as the woman who had created it.

  “I put your things where they belong,” Martha went on, “if you really are Kenneth’s wife, that is.” She entered the house and marched straight for the stairs. “I shudder to think the master bedroom was being defiled by a liar and a cheat.”

  Uneasy at the thought of staying in the room she’d been trying to avoid, Sydney swallowed her objections. Besides, now that she had met Martha, she had no desire to remain in the other woman’s room.

  Crossing to the bottom of the staircase, she looked up at her sister-in-law. “All your doubts about my marriage to your brother will be put to rest tomorrow when I pick up the photographs from Stone Beach Photos.”

  On the landing, Martha paused and her deep-set, dark eyes narrowed. “That’s to be seen, isn’t it? But no matter what you show me, my doubts will never be erased.” Managing to sound genuinely upset, she added, “If you really did trick Kenneth into marrying you, you used some clever subterfuge or he wouldn’t have excluded me from his plans.”

  With that, Martha disappeared into her room and slammed the door behind her.

  Sydney breathed a sigh of relief and wondered if she could successfully avoid any more unpleasantness. She hoped her sister-in-law did have other plans for the evening so she would be free to roam the house at will. She dreaded entering the room she was to have shared with Kenneth and couldn’t tolerate the thought of being cooped up there.

  Deciding to take advantage of the other woman’s immediate absence, Sydney found the dinner Asia had left her the day before and heated it in the microwave. By the time she’d eaten, darkness had fallen. Then her sister-in-law came out of her room. Prepared for a confrontation, Sydney was thankfully spared. Without a word to her, Martha flounced out of the house and drove away in her Porsche.

  Sydney checked all the first floor doors and windows to make sure they were locked before returning to the kitchen where she intended to warm her milk. Not that she needed a tranquilizer tonight. She was exhausted and could barely keep her eyes open, but she didn’t want to take any chances.

  The refrigerator held a surprise, however. No milk carton. And she couldn’t remember seeing it when she took out her food earlier. Maybe Benno had finished the milk that morning while he was making breakfast. No big deal, she assured herself as she turned off all the lights but that closest to the front door.

  Finally, she ascended the stairs to Kenneth’s bedroom.

  Her heart pounded as she opened the door and she entered with a sense of expectation that went unfulfilled. She didn’t sense any trace of Kenneth’s presence.

  How odd.

  Putting away her things which Martha had strewn around the room gave her something on which to concentrate. For a while, at least, she wouldn’t have to dwell on what her first night in this room should have been like.

  Too much time to think -- that was her problem.

  Thoughts too disturbing, too sad, too frightening.

  Once finished reorganizing, she climbed into her comfortably familiar cotton nightgown and turned off all but a low light on top of the chest of drawers. Then she curled up in a leather chair set at an angle near the windows. A matching hassock gave rest to her achy legs. All the while she’d worked, she’d been mentally preparing herself for this moment when she would have nothing to think about but Kenneth.

  Yet as she looked through the glass doors out over the windswept grounds, the image Sydney confronted in her mind’s eye was a strong, angular face framed by dark hair sliced back into a pony tail. The diamond in his ear winked, hypnotizing her until she drifted off to a place without fear...