A Lyon's Share (17 page)

From somewhere Joan found the ability to use her tongue. "This is Mr. Lyon's office," she confirmed thickly. "I'm his secretary."

"Then you must be the one I talked to on the telephone a week or so ago." The petite blonde glided softly to her desk. "I'm Angela Farr. Brandt is supposed to lunch with me today." Baby blue eyes glanced down at the diamond watch around her slender wrist. "I'm early, but I hoped I could persuade him to leave now so we could have a longer time together."

"There's someone with him at the moment," Joan murmured, enviously noting the slender fingers and long, perfectly manicured nails that a typist couldn't possess. "But I can let him know you're here."

A conspiratorial smile flashed quickly, revealing pearl-white teeth. "Maybe it will hurry up the appointment," Angela suggested.

Joan's throat constricted painfully and she could only nod that it probably would be so. She pushed the intercom buzzer to Brandt's office, her palms perspiring with nervous agitation.

"What is it, Miss Somers?" a trace of impatience in the crisp voice that responded to her summons.

"Miss Farr is here to see you, Mr. Lyon." Her voice took on a frigidly cold tone in spite of her desire to sound indifferent.

There was the slightest pause before Brandt replied. "Ask her to wait. I … shouldn't be long." His voice was distinctively warmer and it hurt.

As the connection between the two offices was broken, Joan glanced at the petitely perfect blonde. "Would you like to take a seat, Miss Farr?"

"Thank you." Angela sank gracefully into the straight chair beside Joan's desk. "You're really very nice, Miss Somers. The way Brandt talks about you sometimes, I had the feeling you were much older."

Joan was not sure that it was a compliment, but she decided it was only prejudice rearing its ugly head that made her want to read something else into the statement, if only to find fault with the woman. She would have preferred Angela to be a catty bitch instead of so openly friendly.

"Secretaries tend to be taken for granted," was the only casual, noncommittal reply that came to her mind.

"Have you worked for Brandt long?"

Still unnecessarily shuffling papers on her desk, Joan smiled tightly, unwilling to tell this obvious paramour of Brandt's that she had handed in her notice.

"For three years," she answered.

"You must know him fairly well," Angela sighed, a whispering sound that sent the flowery fragrance delicately scenting her skin to fill Joan's nose.

"Not really, Miss Farr." Joan denied, discovering she hated flowers, and most especially delicate pink rosebuds.

"Surely you travel with Brandt when he visits those noisy construction sites?" Rounded blue eyes looked at her, their largeness emphasized by naturally long curling lashes.

"Whatever gave you that idea, Miss Farr?" Joan laughed shortly.

"Well," petite shoulders shrugged in confusion, "don't you have to take notes or something when he's at these places?"

"If there are any special notes that Mr. Lyon wants to make, he uses a tape recorder and I transcribe them when he returns," Joan explained.

"I see," Angela nodded. Then she glanced past Joan and smiled broadly. "There you are, darling. I knew you wouldn't keep me waiting long."

Joan's cheeks flamed as she involuntarily turned to the connecting door where Brandt was standing. The man with him, a salesman, nodded politely and left. Brandt's gaze flicked over Joan, then Angela, as if he were comparing the two. Joan knew who came out second best and she tried to convince herself that it didn't matter. But a tear slid down her cheek when the lean jungle lion walked out of the door with the delicate pink rosebud.

Chapter Nine

The sandwich Joan had eaten was caught somewhere between her throat and her stomach, a hard lump of bitterness and misery that refused to go away. It was one thing to silently wish for Brandt's happiness and it was another to see him with the girl who was providing it. Only a saint would be immune to the tearing pains of jealousy Joan felt.

Her head pounded unmercifully as she tried not to glance at her watch. Resolutely she kept typing, concentrating on the words Brandt's voice was saying through the earpiece of the Dictaphone, but her heart kept listening to the steady rhythm of his voice. Before she realized it, she had missed an entire sentence.

Frustrated and impatient and all too aware that Brandt's lunch hour was stretching out longer than she had ever known him to take, she replayed the missed part and didn't catch all of it again. With a defeated sigh, she turned the machine off and leaned back in her swivel chair, removing the earpiece and laying it beside the dictaphone. Perhaps if she relaxed for a moment, she would find the strength to hold her thoughts at bay.

The doorknob turned and Joan quickly bent over her typewriter, pretending a concentration on the words typed on the page as if seeking an error. She had heard those firm strides for three years. Unwillingly her gaze darted to her watch, a few minutes before two.

"Are there any messages, Miss Somers?" inquired Brandt.

Her head only half turned, deliberately not bringing him into her vision. "They're on your desk, Mr. Lyon," she replied in a carefully controlled tone of professional indifference.

The footsteps paused somewhere near her desk and waited. The skin along the back of her neck tingled and Joan held her breath, her lashes fluttering down in a silent prayer for Brandt to be gone.

"Was there something else, Mr. Lyon?" she asked coldly. Her mind was hatefully visualizing the reasons why his lunch hour had lasted so long.

"Yes, Miss Somers, there is," Brandt responded grimly. "From now on, you wear your hair down. There isn't any need to keep up your masquerade as a Cinderella girl."

Her pulse accelerated alarmingly as his statement caught her off guard. The desire to do anything to please him was strong, but he already controlled too much of her existence, however unknowingly. More share than a lion was entitled to. Her trembling fingers closed over a rubber and she began needlessly erasing a correctly spelled word.

"It is not a masquerade," Joan retorted. "I wear my hair this way because it's practical and I shall continue to do so."

A gasping cry of surprise was ripped from her throat as her chair was spun sharply around. Hands gripped each side of the chair, holding her prisoner in its seat as Brandt glowered threateningly above her.

"That was not a request!" he snapped. "That was an order!"

The thick lenses of her glasses brought his face sharply into focus. She was stunned by the blazing anger hashing in every feature. Never once had she seen Brandt angry, not truly angry like this.

"No." she murmured, uncertain whether it was a protest at his order or surprise that he was capable of such fury.

The tortoiseshell glasses were stripped from her face and tossed carelessly on the desk top before she could attempt to stop him. When she reached out to retrieve them, her shoulders were seized and she was hauled roughly to her feet. The lion was aroused and reacting with primitive violence.

"You will wear it down," Brandt growled. "And so help me, if you don't take it down, I will!"

Her fingers were trembling against his chest, placed there in case he tried to crush her against him. There was a wild ache in her stomach to disobey, to feel his fingers tearing through her hair and maybe even the savage punishment of his mouth on hers. But there would be too great a risk that she might betray her need to respond to his caress.

Hesitantly she raised her hands to the pins holding her hair in its neat, severe coil. Within seconds it was tumbling down her back and curling over the fingers digging into her arms. Bravely she lifted her gaze to Brandt's face.

The fury of his temper had subsided to a smoldering fire in the dark blue of his eyes. "Are you satisfied?" she breathed tautly.

His mouth thinned. "No."

Her heart stopped as she sensed that the admission had been unwillingly given. His hands slid around her back, one moving to the back of her neck and the other to the back of her waist as he pulled her against him. With bruising possession, his mouth closed over hers. Joan quivered in resistance for an instant, then surrendered to her own hunger.

The door to her office opened and Brandt roughly pushed her an arm's length away. Lyle Baines was standing in the doorway, staring at them in open-mouthed surprise. Joan twisted her head sharply away, coloring in shame. Without uttering a word, Lyle Baines stepped back into the corridor and closed the door.

Not until they were alone did Brandt release his supporting hold on her shoulders. His fingers closed over her chin, forcibly raising it to look into his face.

"I have no excuse, Joan," he said grimly, "except that I wanted to hurt you. I never meant to succeed that way."

Tears were brimming her eyes, but she met his searching gaze. "From now on," she said in a tortured whisper, "save your caveman techniques for Angela. She might appreciate them."

"If I thought beating you with a club would help, I'd do it," Brandt stated cryptically, and turned abruptly away, striding into his office as if, had he stayed, he would have tested the thought.

By Monday of the following week, every employee of Lyon Construction was aware that Joan was leaving and that her replacement was beginning that morning to learn the office routine under Joan's supervision. Everyone was also aware of the scene witnessed by Lyle Baines. The office grapevine was blazing with rumors and speculation as to Joan's true reason for leaving. There was nowhere in the building Joan could go without her ears burning.

Her replacement Mrs. Mason, was a small, graying woman with a ready smile. She gave the impression that with her varied experience she would catch on to the office routine quickly. Joan secretly hoped she would, thus enabling Joan to leave before the week was over.

Mrs. Mason accompanied Joan when she went into Brandt's office the first thing on Monday morning to deal with the mail and appointments. Brandt appeared eager for Mrs. Mason to learn quickly, as he addressed all of his questions and notations to her instead of Joan. Except for an initially brusque greeting, he ignored Joan almost completely, not even glancing in her direction. It was something of a relief when everything had been handled and she and Mrs. Mason could leave.

"Would you stay a moment, Miss Somers?" Brandt requested calmly as Joan, started to rise from her chair.

She glanced apprehensively at the older woman, preferring the insulation of her company, but there was really no choice. "Of course, Mr. Lyon," she agreed, and resumed her seat as Mrs. Mason walked out of the office.

His expression was remotely bland when he directed his attention towards her, blue eyes reflecting none of his thoughts. An uncomfortable silence settled in the room, unbroken until Brandt pushed himself out of his chair and walked to the window, folding his hands behind his back.

"Have you heard the rumors circulating the office about us?" The question was tossed almost casually over his shoulder.

Joan blinked uncertainly, stunned that Brandt could have heard them. "Yes," she breathed.

Brandt half turned to look at her, a brow arching slightly. "So you are aware that everyone believes you and I are having an affair."

"Some have said that," she agreed, lowering her gaze to the folded hands in her lap.

"Have you attempted to deny it?"

"There wasn't any point," she replied nervously. "I'll be gone at the end of this week and the stories will die naturally."

Slowly Brandt turned around and walked back to his desk, stopping in front of her chair and half standing, half sitting against the edge of his desk.

"Do you know what conjecture has been made about your resignation?" His gaze was disturbingly concentrated on her.

Joan felt the heat spreading up from her neck. "That we've quarreled," she answered.

His mouth twisted in a cynical smile. "I think that's putting it simply, Joan," he mused with a tired sigh.

"Why do they say such terrible things?" Joan averted her head, speaking her thoughts aloud.

"Who knows?" he answered in taut exasperation. "I suppose we gave them food for scandal when we were marooned at the office during that blizzard. It didn't help matters when I lost my temper the other day either. I'm sorry, Joan."

"I … I don't blame you, Brandt," she said softly, rising to her feet in agitation and walking awkwardly to the window.

Brandt followed her, stopping beside her and staring out of the window. "Will you reconsider your resignation?" he asked quietly.

"What?" she gasped softly, glancing sharply at his profile.

His level gaze darted to her briefly. "It's the only way I know to put an end to these rumors. After a few months they'll see for themselves that it isn't true. If you leave, they'll assume they're right."

It was difficult to breathe. His suggestion was so logical that she hardly dared to think about it. "I … I can't." She shook her head. "I'm leaving at the end of the week."

"What would another few months matter?"