by Janet Dailey
Darting a quick smile at the elderly secretary, Tamara walked directly to the door leading into the private office. She knocked once, and a voice that she recognized instantly as Bick’s gave permission to enter. Opening the door, Tamara couldn’t keep the suppressed joy at seeing him again from sparkling in her jewel-blue eyes. Bick was standing behind Mr. Stein’s desk, his attention focused on some papers on its top. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the movement of a second occupant in the room. She tore her gaze from Bick to identify the second person.
“Hello, Adam.” She greeted him naturally and turned back to the man who had summoned her. “You wanted to see me … Mr. Rutledge.” She remembered, just in time, to address him formally.
Bick lifted his head and Tamara was frozen by the icy cold look of his green eyes. “Come in, Miss James,” he ordered.
As she walked toward the desk, her gaze darted from Bick to Adam to the ledger books on the desk. An alarm bell went off in her head and Bick’s next words confirmed what she feared. “Mr. Slater and I want you to tell us what you know about the missing twenty thousand dollars.”
“Y … You know about it.” Her legs started to turn to jelly.
“Yes.” Something savage flickered across Bick’s expression.
Unable to stand without support, Tamara slowly lowered herself into the armchair in front of the desk. A faint laugh bubbled from her throat, venting some of her tension.
“I actually feel … relieved that you know about it,” she said, a little surprised at that discovery.
Bick appeared unmoved by her admission. “What happened to the money?”
“I borrowed it.” Tamara would have followed that statement with an explanation, but she was interrupted by Bick.
“With whose permission?” he snarled, towering behind the desk to physically intimidate her.
There was a puckering frown on her forehead as she tried to defend herself. “With nobody’s permission—at least not officially.” At the gathering thunder in Bick’s features, Tamara hurried on with an explanation so he would understand. “I approached Mr. Stein several times with the intention of asking for the loan,” she assured him with a proud tilt to her chin. “But there was always some interruption, or else he was wrapped up in his current project. I needed the money desperately. Since I had borrowed money from him and his brother before, I knew he would loan it to me again. So I took it. I knew he wouldn’t mind.”
“No, I’ll bet he wouldn’t,” Bick jeered, his strong features cut into harshly contemptuous lines. “When a man is as old as Stein, I imagine he would consider a woman as young and beautiful as you a rare treat and be thoroughly compensated by the ‘pleasure’ of your company.”
“It wasn’t like that at all. You make him sound like a lecher,” Tamara protested in a stabbing breath. “Mr. Stein has been like an uncle to me. So was his brother before he died.”
“Yes, old men tend to adopt beautiful ‘nieces,’” he sneered.
Tamara whitened at his vile implication, but before Bick could continue, Adam interrupted, “If it was a loan, then what’s the purpose of these entries?”
With difficulty, she forced her wounded gaze to leave Bick to focus on the second man. When she did, Bick walked away from the desk to stand at the window, his legs slightly apart and his hands clasped behind his back. The rigidity of his posture was a clear indication that she hadn’t convinced him of her innocence.
“I … I was going to put it into the ledger as an outstanding employee loan, but Mr. Stein—the other Mr. Stein, Art, the one who died—had me enter it this way the last time. So I presumed that I should do it the same way with this loan,” she explained.
“What kind of trouble are you in, Miss James?” Adam asked gently.
“Trouble?” she repeated blankly. “I’m not in any trouble.”
A scornful sound came from Bick. “You are in trouble all the way up to your pretty little neck,” he snapped without turning from the window or altering his stance. “When somebody takes twenty thousand dollars, they had better have twenty thousand reasons. So you’d better start telling us yours.”
“My mother is … terminally ill.” Tamara went on to explain the details of the debilitating disease that was killing her mother by inches every day and the constantly increasing financial drain for medical and associated costs of the illness.
“Didn’t you have medical insurance?” Adam frowned.
“The bills exceeded the limit the insurance would pay over two years ago. Mr. Stein—Mr. Art Stein, that is—loaned me some money shortly after that. I was able to repay it out of the small inheritance my mother received from a distant relative about eight months ago.” The last explanation was added for Bick’s benefit. “And I fully intend to pay back this loan … with interest.”
“How?” The one-word taunt came from Bick.
“My mother has a twenty-five-thousand-dollar life insurance policy.” Tamara swallowed the lump in her throat and took a firmer hold on her composure. “I know this sounds morbid, but when she … passes on, the insurance money will pay the loan. It’s only a matter of … months.” Although she faltered a little, she managed to provide the information without her voice breaking.
“I’m sorry, Miss James.” It was Adam who extended the soft words of sympathy.
“That’s all, Adam. You may leave,” Bick ordered curtly.
After sliding a look at the man rigidly facing the window, Adam smiled thinly at Tamara and left the office. In the silence that followed, Tamara sought Bick’s motionless form with a sideways look. It was as if he had turned to stone, hard and implacable and unreachable.
Then the chestnut head was tipped back as he looked up to the blue sky outside the window. “What happens next, Miss James?”
They were alone and he was still addressing her in that polite formality. She felt chilled and rejected. Tamara looked away.
“I don’t believe I understand your question,” she replied with great dignity, a mask for her hurt.
Bick turned to bring his hard gaze to bear on her. “What is it that you expect me to do?” He rephrased the question into a challenge.
“I expect you to understand.”
“Is that all?” A masculine brow was arched to taunt her.
“Yes, that’s all,” Tamara insisted stiffly.
“Don’t you expect me—and Adam—to keep silent about your … ‘loan?’” He continued to study her over the point of his shoulder.
Confusion clouded her eyes. “I’m sure you’ll want to tell Mr. Stein, but I can’t think why anyone else needs to know.”
“You can’t think why?” Bick repeated in an exasperated taunt. “You helped yourself to twenty thousand dollars of company funds and attempted to hide the fact in the ledger entries.” Long, impatient strides carried him toward the desk. “That doesn’t fall into the category of pilfering. You didn’t filch postage stamps. You took twenty thousand dollars!” He emphasized the amount.
“I borrowed it,” Tamara corrected.
“That isn’t what it looks like,” he ground out roughly. “Do you know what it looks like? Embezzlement.” Bick flipped open the books and shoved them across the desktop for her to see, but Tamara didn’t need to look at them to know what they contained. “You can’t expect Adam or myself to keep quiet about this.”
“It’s only a loan,” she repeated, and fought to keep the panic out of her voice with some success.
“Tamara! You aren’t dealing with the brothers Stein. This is Taylor Business Machines, a national corporation. I am answerable to stockholders and a board of directors.” His voice pounded at her ears. “My actions are governed by federal laws.”
“I’m going to pay it back with the insurance money,” Tamara reminded him.
“Why the hell didn’t you simply cash the policy in?” Bick demanded.
“Because I wouldn’t have received even half the face value of it. And that wasn’t enough! I don’t think you know how muc
h it costs for doctors, a full-time nurse, treatments, and medication, and—” She stopped when she realized she was on the verge of hysteria and didn’t continue until she had regained control. “At least I will have the money from the insurance to pay back the loan. That should mean something.” She stared at her hands, fingers laced tightly together in her lap.
A weary sigh came from Bick. His head was bent and he was rubbing his forehead, then his eyes, before bringing his hand down over his mouth and chin. The harshness had left the troubled green of his eyes as he picked up a pen and tore off a corner of a message pad.
“Give me the name of your insurance company and the local agent,” he requested in a flat, emotionless voice.
Tamara did. “I don’t have the policy number with me, but I can get it if you need it.” She had always prided herself on being intelligent, but viewing her actions through his eyes, she realized she had acted like a naive idiot.
“I’ll let you know if I need it,” Bick said without looking at her.
Somehow that made her feel worse than all his insulting insinuations. Unlacing her fingers, she gripped the arms of the chair. “If you don’t have any more questions, I’ll leave now.” When no response was forthcoming, she pushed out of the chair and started for the door.
Before she was three steps away from the chair, a hand was on her arm to spin her around. Then her shoulders were seized in a talon-strong grip and Bick was towering in front of her, dwarfing her with the breadth of his shoulders and searching her face with tortured anger.
“Why? Why, Tamara? Why?” he ground out savagely.
She blinked back the tears shimmering in her eyes and proudly returned his probing gaze. “I have already explained why.” She was careful to speak concisely and conceal the tremor in her voice.
A hand slipped from her shoulder to encircle her throat as if he wanted to throttle her for being so incredibly stupid. “I don’t think you have any idea how much you have complicated everything,” Bick muttered.
In the next second, his mouth was swooping down to cover hers. The leashed violence in his kiss made the possession hard and punitive. He used his mastery to hurt, not to ease Tamara’s hurt. The protesting cry she made was smothered by his mouth and her arms came up to push against his chest in resistance.
Her spark of rebellion ignited a counterassault. His arms went around her to encircle Tamara with his male strength and crush her against his chest. The force of it drove the breath from her lungs and Tamara surrendered to her superior foe. In acknowledgment of her submission, the pressure of his mouth subtly changed to a persuasive degree.
The shaping caresses of his hands began to send warm impulses of pleasure along her nerve ends. It started fires that had her lips moving against his in willing response. Tamara melted in his embrace that assauged all the hurt and banished all the fears. In his virility there was strength; in his strength there was protection.
Her arms were trapped between them, denying each the closeness they sought. Bick loosened his hold and lifted his head, dragging his mouth over her closed eyes to her forehead, his breath warm and moist against her skin. She tried to find a way inside his suit jacket as his hands moved to her waist.
Bending his head again, Bick nuzzled her neck and alternately licked and nipped at her sensitive skin. “Thank God you wore a blouse today,” he muttered thickly as his exploring fingers found the front and skillfully freed the buttons from the material.
She heard herself moan softly when his hands slipped inside and dispensed with the front fastener of her brassiere. His mouth moved back to her lips as if to capture the sound. Pulling her with him, Bick moved backward to sit on the edge of the desk. He stretched his legs apart, drawing her in to stand inside.
“I knew your skin would feel like satin,” he declared in a husky murmur.
His hands took the weight of her breasts in their palms while his lips began a foray to their slopes. With weakening legs, she leaned against him and curled her hands into the thickness of his hair, pressing his mouth to the crest his tongue teased. The hard outline of his driving need for her was etched against her flesh. Sensations spun round and round in a mindless whirl of desires that preempted coherent thought. There was only now and this moment, when Bick wanted her as deliriously as she wanted him.
A shrill sound tried to break their spell. It made several attempts before Tamara recognized the sound. Bending her head, she brushed her lips against the burning lights in his brown hair.
“The telephone.” She identified the sound in case he hadn’t.
“To hell with it.” Bick denied its importance to lift his head and draw her mouth down to his, but the phone rang shrilly again before their lips more than touched. Tamara sensed his conflict between duty and desire and made the choice for him by drawing away. Bick reached behind him to pick up the receiver. “Yes…. I did? I’ll stop by to pick it up before Mrs. Davies locks the office….”
During the second pause, Tamara became conscious of their surroundings. Although Bick had kept an arm around her hips, she was standing freely. Their passion had carried them both away, but this was neither the time nor the place to make love. Partially returning to her senses, Tamara began refastening her clothes. Bick saw her movement.
“Hold the line.” He ordered the party on the other end to wait and pressed the receiver against his chest to muffle their voices. “What are you doing?”
“We’ll only be interrupted again,” she reasoned.
He drew a deep, shuddering breath and his mouth slanted in a smile of agreement. Removing his arm from around her hips, he lifted his hand to stay her fingers from buttoning the top buttons and leaned forward to kiss the creamy swell of her breast.
With downcast eyes, he moved away from her as if it was an effort to deny himself. The action spoke more volubly than any protest that he didn’t really want her to go. When he finally looked at her, Bick had control of himself.
“About your … loan. I’ll handle it—somehow,” he promised. With a nod of his head, he motioned toward the door. “Now go.” Before she could answer him, Bick was raising the receiver again to his ear. Securing the last two buttons, Tamara walked to the door and paused to smooth the front of her blouse and skirt so it wouldn’t be quite so obvious what she had been doing.
* * *
“Good morning, Mr. Rutledge.” The slim, iron-haired secretary greeted him and glanced at her watch.
“Yes, I’m running late this morning, Mrs. Davies,” he admitted wryly, and paused at her desk to pick up the day’s mail. “You can tell the payroll clerk to dock my check by fifteen minutes.”
“You sound testy this morning. And you look like you forgot to go to bed last night,” she observed.
“Thanks. You look like a hag this morning yourself,” he said, countering her insult. The mirror had told him the same thing when he’d shaved, reflecting the deepening lines in his face.
“Problems?” Mrs. Davies probed with her usual astuteness.
His mouth quirked. “You could say that. Any messages?”
“Yes.” She handed him a half dozen slips of paper, which he quickly sifted through.
Bick frowned at the third one. “Who is this Karl Pannell?”
“I believe he said he was an insurance agent. He was returning your call.”
“That’s right, I did call him.” He remembered the name Tamara had given him with a certain grimness. “Did he say when I could reach him?”
“His plans were to be in his office until noon.” She supplied the information with her usual efficiency. Bick could tell she was eaten up with curiosity, but he wasn’t prepared to satisfy it yet—not until he had settled on his plan of action.
“Thank you.” When he saw her gathering the appointment book and note pad to follow him into his office to go over the day’s agenda with him, Bick forestalled her. “I have some personal calls to make first, Mrs. Davies. I’ll let you know when I’m through.”
“Yes, sir.
” But she plainly wasn’t pleased that he was altering their routine.
Her displeasure was the least of his concerns. He left her sitting at her desk with thinly pursed lips and walked into his spacious private office, firmly closing the door behind him. Crossing the thick shag carpeting of autumn rust, Bick set his briefcase on the floor behind the long executive desk and picked up the telephone.
He dialed the number of the insurance company. While the phone rang, he sat down on his chair and unlocked the middle drawer of his desk to take out the employee record card. A receptionist answered and put his call through to Karl Pannell.
“How may I help you, Mr. Rutledge?” the agent inquired after greetings were exchanged.
“A Miss Tamara James has recently joined our employ and we are attempting to straighten out her insurance,” Bick lied. “I have been informed that she is named as the sole beneficiary on a life policy issued by your firm for her mother …” He checked the employee record card. “… Mrs. Lucretia James.”
“One moment, please, while I check our records,” the agent requested.
“Of course.” Bick tapped a pen on the desktop while he waited. He wondered if he wouldn’t have saved time by simply asking what the insurance company’s procedure would be to change the beneficiary to the corporation.
There was a click on the line. “Mr. Rutledge? I’m afraid your information isn’t correct.”
A stillness came over him. “Do you mean Tamara James isn’t the beneficiary?”
“No, the policy is no longer in effect.”
His fingers tightened around the telephone receiver, his knuckles turning white. “Since when?” Bick asked carefully, trying to sound only casually interested.
“Let’s see. It was cashed in about seven months ago. My notes indicate the insured was in a financial position where the premiums were becoming too much of a burden.”
“Seven months ago?” Bick repeated, because he wanted to be very certain about that date. “Are you positive?”
